


Goodnight To An Old Soul

by fiach_dubh



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Art, Blood, Blowjobs, Borderline Personality Disorder, Caleb Typical Trauma Levels, Caleb Widogast's trauma, Caleb has PTSD, Cult dynamics, Emotional Slow Burn, Feelings, Fluff, Found Family, Human AU, Intercrural Sex, Love Confessions, M/M, Mental Illness, Molly has BPD, Mutual Pining, No Magic AU, PTSD, Post-Apocalypse, Riding, Self Destructive Behaviour, Self Harm, Sex, Sex Before Feelings, Sex before relationship, all the different ways to love people, backstories are adapted for au but are canon-typical, bed sharing, but mostly soft and hopeful, considering the universe it's surprisingly not grim!, everyone's got issues it's a post-apocalypse, exploring post apocalyptic worlds, fic with art, first time anal sex, handjobs, it's my 'fuck you' to grimdark narratives, it's sad, long fic, mental illness recovery, molly has some issues, sad caleb, set in England, they start fucking in chapter 4, thigh fucking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-05-14 04:09:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 52,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14762324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiach_dubh/pseuds/fiach_dubh
Summary: Molly meets Nott and Caleb while scavving in an abandoned supermarket. He takes them home.But Caleb's got a past. Can New Refuge survive the consequences of Molly's impulse? Can Caleb and Molly build something amid the wreckage of old lives?A post-apocalyptic AU set in the East Anglia region of the United Kingdom, ten years after a combination of natural disaster and illness swept the globe.It's a story about what we do after the ruin, whether that's global, local, personal or emotional. It's a story about rebuilding. It's a story about grief and hope. And it's got sex in.Updates Mondays and Thursdays.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art in this chapter was drawn by @cloudwitches on twitter and coloured by kesterite on tumblr based on early snippets shared in the widomauk server.

Molly was hiding. Pressed into a narrow corner with his back against the wall, fist pressed into his mouth so that his breath didn’t give him away. Curse him to hell and back for his constant hairdye search. There were other people here, he could hear them talking - he didn’t know if they would ignore him or kill him.

He could hear - two voices. But that didn’t mean only two people. He’d learned that the hard way. 

The voices -one had a faint german accent. The other was high-pitched, young - maybe female. Molly held his breath. The box of peroxide bleach dug into his hand.

“I do not know,” the one with the german accent was saying. “I think we might have been imagining things.”

“I’m telling you, I saw someone! We can’t be too careful.”

Dust started tickling in Molly’s throat. No, no no -

He held his breath against the impending cough. The two people kept talking.

“I don’t want to get in a fight with anyone.”

“If they make us, though.”

The dust got to Molly, and he coughed, before immediately clapping his free hand to his mouth. There was a brief silence.

“Did you hear that?” It was the woman speaking, in a harsh whisper. Nothing for it. Molly bolted.

He didn’t get far across the rubble-strewn floor before a streak of lightning pretending to be a teenage girl barrelled into him and knocked him to the floor. He ended up on his back with the girl sitting on his chest, holding a knife to his throat. She was small, young - maybe seventeen or eighteen - with medium brown skin and short, tangled black hair. Her eyes were huge and almost golden.

“Hey, “ he said. “I’m just a scavver.”

“Who the fuck are you!” she shrieked.

“Mollymauk Tealeaf. Molly to my friends. I do hope you’re going to be my friends.” He looked up past the girl on his chest to the man who was with her. Tired looking, white, gingery-brown hair. Dirty, but then who wasn’t?

“Nott. I do not think he’s a threat. He was running.”

“Bad guys have feet too, Caleb!”

“I’m just here to grab stuff for my home. We’ve got a nice little set up. Food, electricity, even running water. Haven’t quite worked out hot water yet, but we’re getting there. They sent me to look for medicines that aren’t too far out of date, you know, Ibuprofen, diazepam - Jester says you can use diazepam to fix lockjaw, you know that? There’s a chemist here and I thought -”

Molly shut his mouth with difficulty. He’d always been a nervous gabbler.

The girl - Nott? - was looking at him with something like disdain. He smiled at her. He’d been told he had a charming smile. It didn’t seem to be working on her yet. Molly swallowed.

“What are you here for? If we work together maybe we can find even more.”

“He’s just saying that so we relax and then he’ll stab us in the back!”

“I would rather you didn’t kill me. The world would lose one of its last remaining great beauties.”

The man, Caleb, snorted. “Nott,” he said, gentle and soft. 

Nott grumbled and wriggled off Molly’s chest. Molly sighed out a breath of relief. “Thank you,” he said.

Caleb held out a hand. He was wearing ragged fingerless gloves. Molly reached out for him, and Caleb helped him to his feet. Trust in the post-apocalypse was a precious thing. Molly liked choosing it whenever he could. Molly dusted himself down.

“Damn,” he said. “I dropped the bleach.”

Caleb frowned. “Like - clothing bleach? Household bleach?”

“Like I’d put that on my hair.”

Nott tilted her head. “I’m sorry. You’re grabbing hair dye?”

Molly pulled at one of his curls. “Look at those roots,” he said. “And all the purple has faded out. Hair dye is a wonderful find for me.”

“Don’t judge him,” Caleb said. “Our bag is full of books.”

“Books are useful -”

“Books!” Molly said in delight. “We’ve got a library at home, if you’d be interested in trading some time.”

Caleb stiffened and his eyes widened. “A library,” he said.

“Yeah, we set up near an old one. Lots of the books were fucked by damp and shit, but we’ve been replacing them. Got fiction, non-fiction - some of them have been really handy in getting things together, you know? The whole organic vegetable gardening section was a godsend.”

“Why are you telling us this?” Nott asked. “We could be anyone.”

Molly shrugged. “I haven’t told you where we are. And are you planning to get a bunch of people together and raid us? It’d be a bad idea.”

“No!” both of his new acquaintances said in shock and horror.

“There we are then. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got to fill my bag with medication and beauty products. Beauty aisle is just behind me, or what’s left of it. And I think I can get into the chemist’s back room with some effort.”

He turned on his heel and headed back to the beauty aisle, picking up the box of bleach on the way. He’d seen some purple dye, and some red and blue that he could maybe mix -

He hadn’t got far before he felt Nott tugging at his sleeve. “I can pick locks,” she said. “If I help you get into the back room, will you show us your library?”

Molly hesitated. “That’s not up to just me,” he said. “We’ve got a kind of council for decisions - hang on.”

He swung his pack off his back and dug through for the two-way radio. “Hey,” he said into it.

“Fuck you want.” It was Beau on listening duty apparently. Marvellous.

“Ran into some people out here,” he said, making eye contact with Caleb and smiling. “Friendly. They’ve got some potentially useful skills -” not strictly speaking a lie. Everyone had potentially useful skills, after all.

Beau sighed over the crackling line. “Standard rules for strays, Molly. Take them to the safe zone and we’ll make a decision there.”

“Will do, Beau. Out.” He put the radio back in his bag and grinned at them. “That’s the best I can do.”

Nott and Caleb looked at each other and went into a huddle to discuss their options. Molly busied himself with grabbing some hair dye. He ought to get some other colours too. He wasn’t the only one who liked to decorate himself whenever the option was there. Might grab some shampoos and soaps too, they were fine for the moment but more was always welcome.

When Molly had grabbed everything he thought he could carry, Caleb tapped him on the shoulder. 

“We have agreed. We will do it.”

Close up Caleb was handsome, if you ignored how tired he looked. And his eyes were very blue. Oh. Molly felt the familiar coiling warmth of attraction in his chest. Well. This could be fun.

Molly jerked his head towards the chemist storeroom. “Then could Nott, uh -” Shit, the words were gone. He wiggled his fingers in the air.

Nott rolled her eyes at him. Fuck her, not his fault he lost words and phrases sometimes. All the same, she went to start - lockpicking, that was it! - without any complaint. She was quick. It was only a few moments before the lock clicked and the door creaked open an inch or two. It was stiff on its hinges from time.

“Careful,” Molly said. “Could be anything in there.”

He pushed the door the rest of the way open. 

The room stank of mold and rot. A crack had opened up in the ceiling, letting in the rain and light. A stubborn tree of some kind had rooted itself just under that crack and reached, striving for the light. It wouldn’t live long. Anything that had been that side of the room was ruined, gone to pulp and labelless bottles. Molly ignored it. There were better options closer by, drugs in packets and bottles, arranged alphabetically. He pulled out the list Jester had given him and started to grab things off the shelves.

Behind him Caleb gasped. Molly turned, to see what had happened. 

“Oh,” Molly said.

There were… remains. Old ones, not recent. It was pretty much skeletal. Fallen forward over a computer with a blank screen Clothes faded rags around it.

“Guess they got sick,” Molly said.

“I wonder who they were?” Caleb said, his hand hovering above the… things skull.

“Unlucky,” Molly said, turning away. “Unlike us.”

Caleb murmured something under his breath. Nott jiggled on the balls of her feet in the doorway.

“Are you nearly done? Someone might come!”

“All done,” Molly said, after checking his list over one final time. He’d got nearly everything. Not a bad run. Jester was going to be so pleased with him.

“Will you follow me, gentleman and lady? I am your humble guide to our safe zone, where you will … judged.”

“Humble,” Nott said, with her voice full of frank disbelief.

Molly ignored that. Oh, these two were going to fit in just fine. And he was sure they’d be welcome. Every one of his strays had been so far.

Outside, Molly looked back over his shoulder. The store loomed above him, a shadow against the midday sky. A bird sang. The shop had lost all its letters; to his left a giant green A slowly sank into the soil, wrapped around with climbing weeds. Caleb and Nott stepped through the empty door frame into the light, shading their eyes with their hands. When the light hit Caleb all the warm tones in his hair gleamed copper.

Molly beckoned them on, past the cars rusting on the broken tarmac, through the weeds and brambles. “Safe zone’s this way, kiddos. Hour or two on foot.” He looked at Nott. She was very short, with little legs. “Maybe three,” he said. “We follow the old road for a bit, but then we detour, ok?”

“You do this a lot?” Nott asked.

“I’m the best scavver they’ve got,” Molly said, with pride. “I’m out more than I’m back there. Spend days out here sometimes.”

“I am surprised you’ve not been hurt yet. It can be dangerous. Wild dogs, bad people -”

“I know how to keep myself safe. You must do too, you don’t look like you’ve had anywhere permanent to lay your head for a while.”

Caleb hummed and stopped talking. Fine by Molly. They kept walking, passing a road sign on their left still proclaiming the miles to London. In the distance a broken tower block loomed, jagged edges stabbing into the sky. Molly cocked his head at the crossroads, listened out, heard nothing but the wind in the trees and birds singing. 

“This way,” he said, taking the right hand route out of the ruined suburbs. The wind picked up a bit, blowing dust around his feet. The sun was hot on the back of his neck and sweat ran down under his jacket and bag. “Hang on,” he said, and shrugged his patched, colourful jacket off and put it in his pack. His tattooed, scarred arms were visible under his short-sleeved top. He caught Caleb looking and winked. “Not bad, huh?” he said.

Caleb was cursed with the kind of skin that showed a blush. It was faint, but there. Score one for Molly.

“That’s a lot of ink,” Caleb said, looking over the other side of the road, supposedly at a house crumbling away into nothing.

“Hmm. I like them. Don’t you?” Molly made his voice as innocent as possible.

“They are very - colourful.”

“Well, I’m a colourful human being, so I guess that fits.”

Nott yelled at them to wait, and Caleb looked stricken and guilty “Do you want to ride on my shoulders?” he asked her when she caught up out of breath. She nodded.

“You’ve both got stupid long legs,” she said. Molly chuckled. Caleb crouched down on one knee and let her scramble up onto his shoulder, then stood, straining a little under her weight. Molly pulled a bottle of water out of his pack and offered it up to Nott, who drank deeply and passed it down to Caleb.

“Alright?” Molly said, before setting off again.

After a while, Molly detoured off the main road, through a house in ruins, over the weed-choked back garden and through a broken part of a wall. They were now in a set of back streets, blocked off by rubble in multiple places. The route through was a bit of a maze, But Molly knew the symbols by heart. Left here, right there, right again - and so on, while the sun sank slowly through the sky. He kept an eye on his new friends, who were doing well - for a skinny thing, Caleb managed just fine - until he got to another old store. This one looked boarded up and the signs were in a language that Molly had never been able to read.

“Polish,” Caleb said in distant surprise. Molly ignored him. What did he care what languages the dead had spoken? Molly headed round to the side of the building, and opened up the supposedly-boarded window. The boards here were on hinges, cleverly hidden and closed.

“Through here,” he said.

Caleb passed Nott through the window and placed her on the floor before clambering through himself.

It was dark inside, lit only by dusty sunbeams breaking through the boards. The floor was bare, and there was no shop fixtures. There was a trapdoor in the centre of the floor that Molly hauled open, gesturing down the stairs.

Neither Nott nor Caleb moved. 

“This is where he kills and eats us,” Nott said.

“No,” Molly said.”Both of you are too skinny.” Nott looked at him. Her eyes were huge in the gloom. “Look, “ he said. “There’s a secret way out down there. We use this way to keep us safe. It’s hard to track someone through the route we just took. I’ll go first, if you want.”

“I’ll go first,” Caleb said. “And I’ll scream if someone tries to hurt me. And then, you stab him and run, Nott.”

“Fine by me.” Molly shrugged and stood with his arms folded as Caleb descended the ladder. A moment later he called up. “It’s fine.” Nott glared at Molly and scampered down, and Molly followed.

Down here was some kind of old basement or storage room but something had opened up a hole in the wall that had been painstakingly turned into a good, strong tunnel. Not by Molly; before his time. He led them through it. And after a short time out,again, into the dimming sunshine. Into a patch of bright grass in the centre of a woodland that he knew very well.

“We’re here,” he said. 

“I don’t see anything.”

Molly shook his head. “Wait,” he said.

Almost as if they’d been waiting for him to speak, four people came out of the woods. Molly relaxed a little. Jester and Fjord, Gustav and Orna. A good greeting crew. Molly stepped forward.

“Look what I found!” he called out.

“More mouths to feed, it looks like,” Fjord called back.

“I was going to say new friends.”

Fjord gave him an unimpressed glare and Molly grinned, utterly unconcerned. He stuck his hands in his pockets. Gustav sighed at him.

“Well, dear boy? Who are these people and what are their skills?”

“Dunno,” Molly said. “Met them in the shop. That one,” he jerked his head at Nott “threatened me with a knife and I assumed a few of you would get a kick out of that.”

Caleb stepped forward, face tight with nerves. “I, uh, I am very clever? I am good with books and maps and things, and I have an excellent memory. Flawless, in fact.”

“Well, shit,” Molly said, impressed. “This is Caleb, everyone.”

“We could do with more help in the library - when you say flawless, what do you mean?” Orna asked.

“I remember everything I read or see.”

Orna reached out to smack Molly around his head. “You showed someone with a photographic memory our secret routes!”

“Ow! I didn’t know!” Molly rubbed at his head.

Caleb shuffled his feet on the ground. “Please,” he said. “It has been a long time since my friend Nott and I have had a safe place to rest, somewhere to be at home in. I would like to help you however I can. I just - we just want -” He sighed out, looking exhausted. “It has been a long time.”

“We don’t think you’re going to betray us, Caleb. We just wish Molly would use more judgement in these things.”

“Photographic memory is useful,” Molly put in, suddenly more invested. This whole mess had been an exercise in impulse, and now he was realising that if Caleb was turned away, he’d be responsible for more lines of defeat and tiredness on that handsome face. “Imagine the things he could do for us. And Nott’s a fighter, quick and sharp, plus a fine lockpick and…”

Orna held a hand up. “Molly, stop,” she said. Her tone was affectionate. “We get the picture.” She beckoned to Gustav and started a whispered conversation.

A few moment later, both turned around.

“Welcome to New Refuge, Caleb and Nott.” They said it in unison, all flash and show and Molly could have cheered. He patted Caleb on the back instead.

“You’re gonna love it here.”

He saw Jester and Fjord relax. They’d have been armed. Kindness was one thing, suicidal stupidity was quite another.

“This is Fjord and Jester,” Molly said. “They’ve been here about a year. Jester’s the closest we have to a doctor, so if you’ve got anything needs looking at, let her know.”

Caleb glanced at Jester, and looked a bit taken aback. Fair, the combination of Jester and Molly in the same space could be a bit much. And Jester was grinning wide enough to put deep dimples in her chubby cheeks, which was always a sign something fun might be happening. Today she was dressed as much like a pretty doll as she could manage post-apocalypse, in a lot of pastel pink and blue. She had blue ribbons in her short black hair.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “I have seen it all.”

“Did - you look a bit young to have trained as a doctor, before -”

“Oh, I didn’t! But I’ve read all the books.The doctor books. And no-one has died yet, anyway.”

“She’s better than nothing, I suppose,” Molly said. 

Jester stuck her tongue out at him. “You weren’t saying that when you had that cold. ‘Oh, Jester, I’m dyyying, please Jester, make it betteeeeer for me’. Drama queen.”

Molly showed her his middle finger, which made her cackle and skip off to hang on Fjords arm.

“She seems… sweet?” Caleb said.

“She’s terrible. And wonderful. One of the best people you’ll meet, in fact.”

Molly was distantly aware that he was showing off. He started walking backwards to talk to Caleb as his friends led them through the woods, using all his most charming smiles and gestures. At some point Fjord got sick of it though, because he startled Molly with a yank at his shoulder.

“Pay attention,” he said. He directed the rest of his sentence at Caleb. “Sorry about him, his main flaw is he knows exactly how pretty he is.”

“Don’t act like you’ve never appreciated it,” Molly murmured, just to make Fjord glare. 

“He is rather, ah -” Caleb said, before realising what he was saying, and shutting up. Shame. Molly loved compliments.

Molly spotted the wall through the trees. “Nearly there, you two.”

“Thank fuck,” said Nott.

“Is - is that a wall?” Caleb said.

“Yep,” Molly said, popping the P. “It’s old cars and stuff and trees. This was one of them - what did you call it, Gustav?”

“Purpose built community,” Gustav said. “Everything you need in one place. Shops, homes, entertainment - one road in and out, enough room for us and more, and surrounded by trees on all sorts. We’ve turned the old playing fields and parks into farmland and built the wall, and that made it perfect.”

“We trade and scav and that gets what our own work can’t. Traders come to the very armed main gate and no further. This is our side entrance. Escape and private entry.” Molly felt as proud as if he’d been responsible for it at all, showing it off like this. He caught Orna giving him a considering smile. What?

Gustav opened the door, and as a group, they walked Caleb and Nott into their new home.


	2. Chapter 2

Caleb was overwhelmed. It had been a wild whirlwind of a day, meeting Molly - the brightest peacock of a man that could possibly exist - and then the journey and then being shown around this new place, New Refuge, and it was all good but good things could be too much too, good things could hurt too. He couldn’t understand anything anyone was saying to him any more, he just nodded when their voices went up into question sounds and looked at the floor.

And eventually he and Nott were in a place, a place that was theirs. With rooms and beds and sheets on the beds and clothes in his arms. And a promise for the library to be open tomorrow.

There was an old sofa in this place - his place. Two rooms to sleep in, one for Nott and one for him. A sofa and a couple of chairs. No kitchen, but he could come and get food from or cook in the communal kitchen any time he liked. As long as he used his skills for it, this could be his home now.

Caleb put the clothes down on the sofa, and sat down. His hands were shaking. He hoped none of them had noticed. Especially Molly, who hid sharp eyes behind that easy grin.

Molly, who was handsome in a way Caleb had noticed, and who had noticed Caleb noticing and had maybe not minded? It was so hard to tell. Caleb could almost never tell. He breathed in, deep, out slow. Repeated it until the jangle of words and new and choice and confusion settled a little.

“Caleb?” Ah, Nott. Dear sweet girl.

“Ja?” 

“Do you - do you think we’ll stay?”

“I do not know,” Caleb said. “I hope so. It seems good here. And - being alone is not safe, for either of us.”

“They seem like good people.” Nott sat down beside him and wrapped her thin arms around her body. “But people can be good at seeming, all the way along, and then there you are, and they aren’t good at all.”

“Ja.” Caleb knew. “I know. I want them to be good. I want us to be good here, too. I want this to work.”

“It doesn’t feel real,” Nott said. “I can’t believe that Molly man would just invite us like that.”

Caleb thought of Molly walking backwards and smiling at him, thought of Molly with the sun in his hair and his eyes screwed up against the light, thought of all the scars and the ink and the piercings and the hair all faded brightness with inches of black roots..

“He seem - “ Caleb said. “He seems like he chooses to trust.”

“That’ll get him hurt,” Nott predicted. “You can’t just do it like that.”

He reached out to put an arm round Nott. She had as many reasons for fear and anger as he did, and she was his friend. But he had no more words for her, and so this would have to do.

They fell asleep, not in their new beds, but curled up on the sofa. It was more familiar that way, two desperate outcasts huddling together in a hostile world.

-

Caleb woke up the next morning with his heart pounding. There was a noise, rythmic, loud, bad bad bad - it took him a moment to realise it was knocking, and then another to realise that it was ok if there was knocking here, probably. Nott was squatted on the sofa, her hand already clutching a knife.

“Hush, hush, I’ll see who it is.”

Caleb opened the door to see Molly there. He was wearing something different to yesterday, a eye-searing shirt left unbuttoned, turned up at the cuffs, over an old t-shirt with a graphic on the front and a deep v-neck cut into it, ragged edges revealing his slim body, all brown skin and tattoos and scars. Molly must have caught Caleb looking, because his smile was knowing, sexy.

He leaned on the door frame, close into Caleb’s personal space and licked his lips.

“Morning, handsome,” he said. Caleb went hot in his cheeks, the back of his neck. 

“Good morning, Mollymauk,” Caleb said back. He tried to find somewhere on Molly to look that wouldn’t make the man smirk at him. He settled on the cheap-looking, shiny necklaces.

“Is that Molly?” Nott called from inside.

“Ja! It is all alright!”

Immediately, Molly’s flirtatious body language dropped. “Shit. Did I scare you? I should have thought, you’ve been out there alone a while right? My fault. Sorry.”

“No, no, it is alright. We will have to get used to being here soon enough, no?”

“Still, should have thought.” Molly did sound genuinely sorry. Caleb risked a glance at his face, at his eyes - eye contact often felt very wrong to Caleb, but he could sometimes manage it - and discovered that Molly looked it too. And that he had green eyes, very pretty.

Caleb broke the eye contact again, uncomfortable. “Thank you,” he mumbled. 

“I thought I might show you the library. Like I promised, yesterday. I guess it probably got a bit much for you.”

“Oh, thank you. And ja, I was… overwhelmed. Everyone was very kind, it is just -”

“Yeah, I know. You started to look kinda out of it.”

Perceptive man, Molly. 

“Of course,” Molly continued, in the gap of Caleb’s silence. “If you want me to fuck off and let you figure out New Refuge by yourself, I won’t be offended. Just say.”

Caleb thought about it a bit. “No,” he said slowly. “Show me to the library please. They said I could help there?”

“Yeah! We got someone runs the place, but she’s got about six other jobs and honestly, it could be better organised, and I think Gustav and Orna have some plans about making it bigger, maybe even starting up a school for the kids?”

Caleb wasn’t sure about the kids but the idea of organising and expanding a library was a delight. He could gather and preserve as much knowledge as possible, keep it safe from those who would destroy it or warp it for their own purposes.

Molly walked away from him, talking with his hands gesturing emphatically, and Caleb couldn’t help but stare after him for a second. He was wearing a pair of sun-and-wear faded jeans, ragged around the hems, patched in places - and so tight Caleb was surprised Molly could move in them. They clung to his strong walkers thighs and calves and to his -

“Caleb?”

“Oh, yes.” Caleb sped up and caught up with him.

“You like my jeans?” The teasing note was back in Molly’s voice. Caleb found it didn’t bother him as much as it had before.

“They are very tight,” Caleb said. 

Molly laughed a little and Caleb worried, a creeping cold feeling that he was doing it wrong, an old feeling from long ago but still not eradicated or laid to rest, even under the weight of newer, heavier issues. But the laugh didn’t seem cruel, or at Caleb’s expense. Before the world crumbled, he’d learned the tones of that kind of laughter.

“They are tight,” Molly said. “I like them that way. Shows off my arse. Do you like them tight on me, Caleb?”

“I do,” Caleb said without thinking. Molly made a soft sound of approval.

“Good to hear.” And there was a definite something there. Caleb was not so good at reading between the lines of what people said, not great at body language or facial expressions, but Molly was so obvious about how he felt. His gestures were big, his face exaggerated, and even Caleb could get at least a loose idea of what Molly was implying.

Predictably, it made Caleb blush.

“Well, here we are,” Molly said. Caleb blinked out of his thoughts, and stared towards where Molly directed his gaze.

It was a library alright. It was even in a small community library building, with ‘Library’ carved into the stone above the door. It wasn’t the biggest, but it was more than Caleb had expected.

“Lots of the books were ruined when Gustav and Orna started up the place, but we’ve been running a slow replacement service. Coral is already inside, probably, so I can hand you over and she can tell you what she needs, if you want.”

“No,” Caleb said. He didn’t know this Coral. He knew Molly, at least a little. “Come in with me?”

“Sure,” Molly said. “I’ve done my useful shit out there, I’m free as a bird.” 

Molly opened the door and bowed extravagantly. “After you, good sir.” Caleb couldn’t repress a chuckle.

Caleb walked in to the familiar scent of books; sweet and dry and soothing. On first glance he simply couldn’t remember when he’d last seen so many in one place and in reasonable condition. He took one off a shelf - a romance novel, and well read by the state of the cover - and stroked his finger along the spine. A flash of memory came, unwanted, pages and covers crinkling and falling to ash in flames.

He put the book back. On second glance he could see many gaps on the shelves, a lack of organisation - Learn To Read books with history books, gardening jumbled up with fiction - and he resolved, instantly, to make it better. To make it so the people of this little town had all the information they could possibly need to make and keep it good and warm and safe.

His eyes were a little wet. Molly was pretending not to notice, flicking through a fragile magazine about cats. How kind of him.

“Please,” he said, and his voice did not shake. “Introduce me to Coral.”

“Sure, Caleb.”

Coral was a tall, rangy woman with blonde hair and freckled skin. She had an ugly burn scar across her face that Caleb couldn’t look at. She had a brusque, harrassed tone.

“To be honest I don’t know shit about libraries or books. But I was a big reader, you know. Before,” she said. “And I think they’re important. Not just the fact stuff, but the stories. But if you can make a better go of it I’ll hand it over happily. I also work in the fucking kitchens and guard posts and sometimes in the fields - something off my list will be welcome.”

“I volunteered in a library some time ago. I can manage this. And make it better,” Caleb said.

“Thank fuck. Can you start… now? I’ve got to think about helping with lunch soon enough.”

Caleb blinked. “Uh - yes?”

Coral chucked him a set of keys, and breathed an obvious sigh of relief.

“All yours, mate.”

She stretched out her shoulders and started moving. “I’ll bring you some food. You like chicken? You’d better, it’s what there is.”

“I, ur -”

Coral lifted a hand and walked out of the library. Caleb looked at the keys in his hand.

“Uh, Molly?”

“Yep?” Molly stepped over, his finger keeping place in a comic book. Caleb showed him the keys. 

“This is mine now?”

“Yeah, should have warned you Coral is kind of… decisive.”

“She is that. I suppose I should -” Caleb looked around. “I think I will start with getting the books in some kind of order.”

Molly smiled at him. “I’d offer to help, but I’d be useless. Anyway, I want to keep an eye out for Yasha getting back. Should be any day now.”

“Yasha?”

“Oh, she’s one of the other scavvers, only she does maps and stuff too? She’s great. When she gets back we’ll dye my hair again. That’s an us thing. She’s been gone four or five days now.”

Molly’s affection for this Yasha was warm and obvious. Caleb had to know how far it went.

“Is this Yasha your - girlfriend?”

Molly burst out laughing. “No! Fuck no! Best friend.I don’t have a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend, for that matter.” He winked.

Caleb picked up the nearest book and stared intently at the cover. 

He could hear Molly laughing again, not cruel, not at his expense. Just - Molly was a laugher, full of delight and colour. It made a smile creep onto Caleb’s face.

“Hey,” Molly said. “People are free to eat on their own or as a group, and you seem like the alone type - but if you want to get to know us all, come along to the common room after you’re done today. I’ll be there, probably, if that’s a selling point.”

“I - I might.”

“Good enough for me. See you around, Caleb.”

Caleb lifted his head and watched Molly as he left the library. Caleb hadn’t felt an attraction so instant for a while. He was interested to see where it might go. Interested and a little scared, but he was here to build a new life, make a new start, and he didn’t need that fear any more, maybe.

Maybe it would be alright to act on something he wanted to do for once.


	3. Chapter 3

Molly headed out into the sun and shook his head. He’d liked the look of Caleb from the start but it had got worse from this morning, finding him rumpled and sleep-eyed at the door,and then relaxed and at home amid the books - when the tension was gone from his face he was very handsome. Molly was thoroughly enjoying the slow simmering heat of attraction, ready to see if it developed further. 

He headed for the wall for now though, saw Beau sitting in the watch-tower. Well, they called it a tower, it was more just a ledge with a fabric roof and a ladder. He clambered up the ladder.

“Hey, Beau,” he said.

“Fuck, Molly. Don’t spook me like that, I nearly hit you.”

Molly looked over the main gate, the cracked tarmac beyond. He could see the edges of the ruined city from up here, the shattered and crumbling tall buildings and the trees beyond.

“Anything from Yasha yet?”

“Nah. Probably not long now. Right, Molly?”

“Longest she was ever gone was two weeks, but she made it up to london and back. That was a trek.”

Molly clapped Beau on the shoulder and she stiffened. 

“Get the fuck down from here, Molly, I’m trying to work. Why don’t you go do something useful.”

“I did, I got Jester all those medicines she wanted.”

“So? That was yesterday. Go do something useful today.”

Molly laughed and climbed down the ladder. He had a day in front of him and nothing to do with it. Normally he’d already be itching to leave again, be out there, but he wanted to wait for Yasha and get to know their new residents, all at the same time.

Maybe he’d stick around a few days. Bother his friends a bit. 

Fjord was in the shack, doing something with metal and wires in a box. 

“Watcha doing?”

“Still trying to get the electrics stable.”

“Oh.” Molly didn’t know anything about electricity or how it worked. They only had it in the common room and the kitchen right now, and and it wasn't very reliable.. “Do you need -”

“Don’t touch anything. Why are you here?”

Molly shrugged. “Just wandering about. Nothing to do.”

“I’m sure they could do with some help weeding in the farm, Molly.”

“Ugh. Fine, I’ll leave you be.”

Fjord grunted. Molly took it as a farewell.

He did wander over to the farm for a bit, to watch people on their hands and knees weeding, people watering, other people harvesting ripe peas and beans in their pods. Well, he wasn’t unkind, and let no-one say he didn’t do his fair share.

Twenty minutes later the coordinator sent him away because he was slowing everyone down, telling him he had to go before he weeded good crops and left the weeds.

The problem was he only really had a couple of skills, and they were finding his way into places and getting good stuff out of them. Oh, he was a charmer and a flirt too, and they loved to send him (along with someone a bit more respectable) to make alliances with traders and other communities, but none of that was happening either.

So he drifted around until lunch was ready, ate that while bothering the people in the kitchen, and then drifted some more until people started to trickle into the common room as their days and tasks finished.

Nott was among them, and Molly was admittedly curious as to what job she’d been found. She looked wary and very wild-eyed without the presence of Caleb.

Molly draped himself across his chair, and called her over. She gave him a suspicious look, but stepped closer to him. What a little monster she was. He liked her.

“What they set you up doing?”

“Hunting and trapping. Foraging. I’m really good at all of that.”

Molly grinned. “That’s cool. So I’ll be seeing more rabbit on the menu from now on, then? Just don’t kill us all with the wrong kind of mushroom, that’d be embarrassing.”

Nott bristled. “I’d never.”

“Course you wouldn’t. I’m just teasing.” Molly swung himself around so he was dangling upside down in the chair, his shirt riding up to show his belly and the trail of dark hair leading into his jeans.

Nott’s face was a picture of confusion.

“What are you doing?”

Molly declined to answer.

The door opened, and Molly saw a pair of battered brown boots, shabby trousers so old and worn they seemed to have no colour at all. He lifted his head and saw Caleb staring down at him. Or at - hmm. Caleb’s eyes were on the skin revealed by Molly’s position. He licked his chapped lips.

“You will get a headache,” he said. 

“I’ve been in weirder positions,” Molly said, almost as a reflex. All the same, he adjusted himself and wiggled back into a more reasonable posture. His hair was in his face. He brushed it away.

“How was your first day at the library?” He let his smile curl up, lazy and promising, propped his arm behind his head. Caleb’s gaze was heavy on Molly’s body. He could almost feel the intensity of it. He had been right, Caleb found him attractive.

The question was if he wanted to do something about it. Attraction didn’t always turn into action, and Molly knew that as well as anyone, having found a lot of people hot and only managing to get his hands on half a dozen of them, at most.

Caleb broke his gaze as more people came in, talking and laughing. Dirty and sweaty from work. The air soon filled up with the noise and smell of people, their heat spilling out. Caleb started to look uncomfortable, guarded. 

Nott was at his side.

“Do you want to go, Caleb? I could bring you a plate of dinner?”

Molly seized his chance. 

“Would you like me to walk you back?” He offered. “I’m sure you’ve not quite learned your way around yet.”

Somewhere in the room there were other people. Molly didn’t notice a single one of them, waiting for Caleb’s response.

“Ja. Yes.”

Molly grinned.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sex in this one. Don't read it on the bus, unless that's your jam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art in this chapter by the amazing Kesterite on Tumblr, who gets an advance, sex-free version of this story.

Caleb stuck his hands in his pockets and stared at the ground. He didn’t know how this was supposed to go. An offer given, an offer accepted, and Molly with him, walking beside him, talking about nothing and everything under the scattered starlight. Caleb had tuned out the actual content in favour of watching Molly’s hands move in the darkness, hearing the rise and fall of his voice.

He wanted to be sure, but maybe Molly would think he was rude. A lot of people thought Caleb was rude, or read the way he spoke as disliking them or dismissing them. 

“Caleb?” He tuned back in.

“Ja?”

“You weren’t listening, were you?”

Caleb shook his head, embarrassed. “No. Sorry.”

“It’s alright. Everyone says I talk too much anyway. You seem like you have something on your mind?”

Before he could stop himself, Caleb opened his mouth and just - asked. “Am I right in thinking your intention with this walk was for - ah - some kind of. Um.”

“Definitely for some kind of ‘um’, yes.”

“I mean,” Caleb said.

“I’d like to suck you off, if you’re up for it,” Molly said. “Since you seem to want it plain.”

Caleb stopped in his tracks. “Uh,” he managed.

“It’s ok if you just want to walk back and not listen to me talk, too,” Molly said. It sounded casual, but there was an undertone there, of something else. Caleb couldn’t parse it, couldn’t find the shape of it in the dark.

“Can I - can I be sure that you won’t. Use this against me, somehow?” Caleb twisted his hands in his shirt, trying not to remember.

“God, Caleb, what shitbags have you been fucking? Of course not. I want to have a bit of fun, and I think you’re hot.”

What shitbags had Caleb been fucking, indeed. If Molly knew the answer to that question Caleb and Nott would be out on their ears, alone again. Caleb didn’t answer.

“There will be no - expectations?”

“None at all,” Molly said with ease. “I’m a casual kind of man myself. If you find you enjoy it, and I enjoy it too, maybe we could try some other stuff another time. No pressure, at all.”

Molly had misunderstood what Caleb meant, but then Caleb barely knew what he meant either, so that was alright. He thought about it a second. Molly was very handsome, and it had been some time, and maybe it would be nice. To have some temporary pleasure in this world, without worrying what it might cost him in future.

“Alright,” he said. “Yes. I would like that.”

The night air made small noises carry - he could hear Molly’s soft outbreath, voices from the common room, an owl calling from the trees. The breeze was soft and sweet on his face.

“Can I kiss you?” Molly said, “or is that not something you do?”

 

The simple act of his asking made Caleb ache in a strange, tender way.

“That would be - yes,” he said, wishing he could put more of his enthusiasm into his voice, his manner, but instead he was stuck being him, being Caleb Widogast, being a broken wreck of a human being who could not even do this simple thing properly or right -

There were warm hands on his face, and his brain shut up for a blessed moment.

“Hey,” Molly said, soft. “Say stop at any time. I won’t be upset.”

And Molly was kissing him.

It was imperfect as all first kisses were, but there was intent and feeling in it, there was the heat of Molly’s mouth and the wet insinuation of his tongue. Molly’s teeth caught on Caleb’s lips, which was actually quite nice. Caleb had had more sex than he’d had kissing, and wasn’t the best judge of such things, but he thought this was a good kiss.

Somewhen in there his hands had gone to Molly’s hips, the denim of his jeans rough under Caleb’s hands. He didn’t like that texture, so he moved up under Molly’s top, to find the warm smooth skin of his sides.

Molly twitched when Caleb touched him there, and broke the kiss.

“Ticklish,” he said. He was breathing hard.

“Sorry,” Caleb said, against his temple. One of Molly’s soft curls brushed his face. Molly’s hair smelled like woodsmoke and cheap shampoo. 

“It’s fine,” Molly said. “We should get somewhere we’re less likely to be spotted.”

“Will we get in trouble for this?” Caleb knew how stupid the question was as soon as it came out. In good places with good people grown adults didn’t get in trouble for wanting each other. Having sex in public, probably, but a kiss under the stars, in the dark? No.

“No,” Molly said, echoing his thoughts. “I just figure you don’t want whoever walks this way next to see your dick.”

He was so kind. He was all flash and colour and flirtation and he took nothing seriously, but he was being so kind. He didn’t need to be. It was only Caleb, and it was only a meaningless blowjob, and -

Molly took his hand and the thoughts went away again. 

“Come on,” Molly said. “I know a good place.”

Molly led him by the hand to a house, little more than three walls and a section of roof. But inside it had been cleaned up a little rubble moved away, made safe.

Molly pressed him against one of the walls. It was solid and chill against his back. Molly pressed his lips to Caleb’s throat and Caleb let him, and liked it too. Molly’s breath was warm and his hands were warmer at the buttons of his shirt.

His shirt. “No,” Caleb said. Molly stopped immediately and took a step back.

“The shirt,” Caleb clarified. “I don’t want -”

“That’s ok,” Molly said. “That’s fine. Do you want to keep going?”

Caleb thought a little. “Yes,” he said. “I just don’t want to be - with my body out.” It was easier to say what he wanted now that he knew Molly had been honest.

“That’s alright. Can I keep going with the kissing?”

“Yes.”

Molly stepped back in and kissed him again, soft and then getting harder. True to his word he kept his hands away from Caleb’s shirt, instead touching Caleb’s face with one and pressing the other to Caleb’s hips. Caleb was almost all the way hard. He’d softened a little with the worry about the shirt but was recovering now. Molly’s hips were pressed almost flush with his own, and he could feel that Molly was hard too, which was good. It made him more sure that Molly really wanted him.

Caleb broke the kiss. In the shadows Molly’s face was sketched in shades of grey, and reduced down to its simplest elements. Eyes, a nose, a pretty mouth, curled darkness for hair. The piercings in his face caught the starlight and reflected a soft glitter.

“Molly, please,” Caleb said.

“I like when they beg,” Molly said. From someone else it might have sounded cruel, domineering, even sneering. From Molly it sounded like liquid delight.

With the grace of a dancer, Molly sunk to his knees in front of Caleb. He fumbled with the button and zip on Caleb’s trousers a little but got them undone soon enough, reached in through the slit of Caleb’s boxers to pull out his erect dick.

“Nice,” he said, when he had it in his hand. Caleb looked down on Molly, on his knees, cock in hand. The faint chill in the air made the contrast of Molly’s hot hand wonderful. Molly stroked it a couple of times, and looked up. His eyes had a nighttime sparkle. He stuck out the pierced tip of his tongue and lapped a little wetness from the tip.

“Hmm,” he said. Caleb closed his eyes and rested his head back against the wall. He put his own hand to his mouth to muffle any noise. Just in time, because Molly sucked him all the way down in one go.

Oh, oh, oh fuck. Molly’s mouth was hot and wet, and he knew how to use his tongue and the piercing on it to the best effect, and Caleb’s legs were shaking with it embarrassingly fast. It had been so long since the last time, and that only hurried mutual handjobs in a shitty bunkroom with a man whose name he didn’t even know. He’d ached inside after. This was different. It felt different. Molly’s hands were gripping his thighs tight and Molly was moaning deep in his throat as he sucked Caleb, and Molly actually liked this, wanted to do this with him.

“Mollymauk,” he said. “It’s - I -”

Molly pulled off his cock to say “Yeah, that’s good. How do you feel about maybe - pulling my hair? Fucking my face a bit?”

Caleb felt very good about that. In a daze he grabbed a fistful of those curls and guided Molly back. He started up a brutal pace into Molly’s mouth and throat, and god. Molly really liked that. His shoulder was moving rhythmically, he was - he was touching himself over this, over Caleb using him like this, god, god, it hadn’t ever been like this, please, please. He was so close, this was so good, Molly’s mouth -

He shouted and came in Molly’s mouth. His head jerked back and hit the wall with a thud. Molly swallowed everything and then let Caleb’s softening cock fall out of his mouth. He rested his head against Caleb’s thigh and started jerking off on earnest.

“Let me,” Caleb said, when he’d got his breath back. “Please, let me.” 

He slid to the ground where Molly was on his knees and his legs weren’t so good as Molly’s, his knees had been injured a few times and now hurt him at least a little all of the time, but things like that didn’t matter.

He wrapped his hand around Molly’s where it was on his dick. Molly whined and pushed his forehead against Caleb’s shoulder.

“Caleb,” he said. 

Caleb started up just exploring Molly’s dick, finding the soft foreskin, the bulbous head, tracing every vein with his sensitive fingertips. Molly gasped and swore under his breath. His jaw was close to Caleb’s mouth, so he kissed it. The skin had the fleshy soft smoothness that some flower petals had. But warm, alive, full of blood and spirit and Molly, Molly.

Caleb sped up. Molly’s cock was wet with precome.

“I’m gonna come,” he said, like it was a surprise, like it was a wonder. “I’m gonna -”

His head snapped back, his neck at a tight curve that was beautiful, perfect and Caleb’s hand was full of hot come. Then Molly sagged, boneless, in a pile on the floor. Caleb didn’t know what to do with the wet mess on his hand. He wiped it off in the dust of the ground.

“That was nice. Good,” Molly said. His voice was rough. Because he was sucking my cock, Caleb’s thoughts offered. They, too, sounded wondering.

Molly clambered up. He was trembling on his long legs, and it took him a couple of goes to tuck his dick away and zip himself up.

“We oughta - we oughta make you nice and neat and get you home.”

“Yes,” Caleb said.

“Was - was that alright?”

“Very -” Caleb cleared his throat. “Very good.”

Molly helped Caleb up, and did his trousers up for him, which was kind. And then they walked back. Molly was quieter than he’d been before. Tired, maybe. Caleb didn’t know him well enough to judge.

Caleb kept waiting for the self hate to hit him, to punish him for daring to take pleasure in anything. It didn’t come. His mind was blissfully silent. Molly led him to his door.

“Here you are,” he said. His hands were in his pockets and he was looking up at the sky. “Another - another time? I enjoyed that. I’d like to do it again.”

“Yes,” Caleb said. “That would - that would be good.”

Molly looked at him. It was hard to tell in the dark but Caleb thought his smile looked a little stunned and unsure.

“Good,” he said, and they stared stupidly at each other before Caleb remembered to open his door and step through.

“Goodbye,” he said to Molly. “Sleep well.”

Molly lifted a hand, and walked away.

Caleb closed the door when he was gone. Nott was on the sofa, staring at him. There was a plate beside her, with chicken and some vegetables on it.

“How come I got back before you?” she said. “I left long after you two did.”

“I went for a walk,” he said.

She gave him a clever, narrow eyed look that said she didn’t believe him. But she let it go.

“Eat up,” she said. “It’s still warm.”

“Ja, mutter,” he said. She laughed a little. He ate the chicken. It wasn’t bad, and he was actually hungry for once. 

When he was done, he changed into something else without looking at his own body more than he had to. He thought he might try sleeping in his new bed tonight. Time to be a community member. Time for a new life. If it involved more sex with Molly, so much the better.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly dyes his hair.

Yasha came home the morning after Molly’s most confusing one-night-stand ever. Thank fuck. She appeared in their shared little house as if she’d never been gone, looking tired but still utterly gorgeous, with all her black and white hair loose behind her.

“Yasha,” he said, and threw his arms around her.

“Oh, hey there. What’s all this for?”

“Just missed you. We got new people, have you heard?”

She murmured an assent, and petted at his hair with one of her big hands.

Yasha was a tall woman, big and muscular, with pale skin and mismatched eyes and and a soft voice with an unplaceable accent.

“A man,” she said, “And a teenage girl. I didn’t quite get the relationship there?”

“Friends. Or… I dunno. There are weirder friendships out there.”

“I ought to meet them soon.”

“Yeah.” 

“Something’s up with you.”

Molly wriggled out of her hug and flopped down on his favourite, most hideous rescued armchair.

“I might have, uh.”

“Molly. He’s been here two days.” Yasha was smiling, though. 

“He’s really attractive.” Molly shrugged. “That’s not the issue. It’s - it - It was just. Weirdly intense. And none of it was stuff I’ve not done before, it was all fairly ordinary, in my experience. Just. Intense.”

“How so?”

“Like - ugh - like I felt… I don’t know. This is one of those things I don’t know how to explain or describe, because I don’t have any. Fuck. What’s the word?”

“Reference.”

“Yeah. I don’t have any reference for this. I’ve never felt it before and no-one’s ever told me what this sort of feeling means. Not that I remember, anyway.” He laughed, without real humour.

“That sounds like it’s going to be a bitch to figure out for you.”

Molly stuck his tongue out and his middle finger up at the same time. “And to think I was looking forward to you getting back.”

Yasha put her bag down on the floor. A sunbeam spilled over the worn fabric, picking out the flaws and tears and wear marks. Dust motes floated in the sun, brief golden specks in Molly’s vision. Yasha scratched at one big arm. For all his confusion he was glad to have her back. 

“Hey,” he said. “I found hair dye. You up for helping me with my hair?”

“Later,” Yasha said. “I want to drop in on Beau. She wasn’t on shift when I came in.”

Molly smirked. “More standing in the same room, talking about bread or something again?”

“As you say. I’ll be back, and then we can do your hair. Outside in the sun.”

“I’ll fill a couple buckets.”

He filled three from the standpipe. The tap dug hard into his hand each time. Watching the water splashing into the bucket, he remembered last night. Caleb’s mouth on his and how hard his heart had beat. Caleb in the dark, the taste of him in Molly’s mouth. He shook it off, carried bucket after bucket back to sit next to the old metal stool he used to dye his hair. He changed into a bleach and dye stained t-shirt, a pair of jogging bottoms, and wrapped a towel around his neck. He ran a wide-toothed comb through his hair, for tangles.

Just in time. Yasha came back from Beau with a pinkness to her cheeks and a faint smile on her lips.

Molly hopped up onto the stool and let Yasha do her magic. Bleach first, different lengths of time for ends and the long dark roots. He liked her fingers in her hair. He liked this little ritual, this - this them-ness. This was theirs, and the hair was his, and this small vanity felt like a cry of defiance. You cannot take these things from me, colour and friendship and life, they are mine, and I will decide how they play out.

He was there, head dangling over the dirt, dripping bleach onto the grey dust. The reek of it was around him, burning in his nose.

“Hello,” Yasha said to someone. He lifted his head, squinted his left eye open.

“Hello, Caleb,” he said. 

Caleb in the dark, Caleb standing above him, Caleb’s hand tangled through his hair. Caleb was maybe thinking along the same lines. His cheeks were faintly pink.

“Oh, and hello Nott,” he said, after a little too much of a pause.

“Are you bleaching your hair?” Nott sounded genuinely curious.

“Yep,” Molly said. “It’s a good thing I don’t want to go blonde though, the closest we ever get is yellow and orange streaks. But who cares when purple is going right over it.”

“Speaking of,” Yasha said and picked up bucket one. In a movement learned from many attempts over time, she tipped it slowly and carefully over his hair, rinsing the bleach mix into the dead earth under the pavement.

Molly shuddered. The water was cold and no matter how careful Yasha was some always soaked him, his clothes. 

He rubbed the towel over his hair and looked up. Caleb was staring at him and Molly knew that look, knew it well. 

“You are right,” Caleb said, after clearing his throat. “It’s good you weren’t trying to go blonde.”

“Are we really going to stand here and watch Molly and this nice lady dye his hair purple?”

“Oh, sorry. Introductions. Caleb, Nott. This is Yasha.”

“This is Yasha,” Caleb said.

“You are very tall,” Nott said.

“I am. Both of those things.”

Yasha’s glove-clad fingers started to work the purple through his hair. He relaxed under it like a cat being stroked.

“Caleb, I’m hungry. And we -” Nott dropped her voice. “We were going to try eating with people for lunch? Just for a little while?”

“Yes. I hadn’t forgotten. Molly. Could -”

“If you want something, Caleb, feel free to come by tonight. I live right here.”

Caleb blushed and wandered off with Nott, heading across the central area to the common room..

“You aren’t fucking him while I try to sleep in the other room,” Yasha said.

“Oh, darling. Your desperate and heartfelt requests have never stopped me before.”

Yasha flicked his ear. “Watch it, or I’ll get my revenge.” She wiped the purple stain off with a corner of damp towel.

Molly reached out for her hand, remembered the dye on the gloves, and thought better of it.

“Hey,” he said, casually. “Did you like him?”

“Who, Caleb? We didn’t exactly speak.”

“I like him,” Molly said. “Can’t explain it, but I do.”

He let the dye develop and watched the sky, the clouds drifting across it. So far away, unbothered and uncaring about the feelings of a young man in a dangerous world. But Yasha cared, and that was what mattered. The world was big and it didn’t care, but people were small and could care and did care. 

He bent his head for the second bucket of water. Put in the little sachet of conditioner that came with the bleach and rinsed a third time, knowing that everything that touched his hair would be rubbing off purple for at least a week.

He did this, and wondered when he’d head out again, and what he’d find. He sat in the sun with Yasha beside him, her head resting against his side, and let his hair dry. Caleb passed again, back to the library. Molly waved.

He still didn’t know why things between them had been so intense. He was willing to find out


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> kitten!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> art, as before, by the incomparable kesterite on tumblr

Caleb liked the feeling of the library keys in his hand. Their small weight, the metal picking up heat from the surroundings and his hands. The big key, for the main doors, had a smooth polished metal texture that he liked to stroke his thumb along. He was doing that now.

It had been fine, having lunch with people. Mostly they talked around him and didn’t demand he know what to say or how to say it. They didn’t stop him from speaking, either. It was fine. It would have been better with Molly there, to tease and play and flirt and make him feel part of things. But it had been alright. 

Nott had walked him back, and was waiting for him to open up and settle in before she went out for her second foraging trip of the day. She had already left rabbits and squirrels and other things in the cool storage in the kitchens, ready for preparing and eating.

They were in a comfortable silence, her letting him spin down and calm himself after people. That was how he heard the mewing. If either of them had been talking, he wouldn’t have heard.

The mewing was soft and plaintive and frightened sounding. He followed it, hushing Nott. He find a small tabby kitten, maybe four or six weeks old, too young to be away from its mother, really. It looked like no mother was coming for it, because it was skinny and bedraggled and scared.

“You and me both, little one,” he said to it.

It stumbled towards him on it’s wobbly, stumpy kitten legs and meowed at him. A big noise for such a little cat.

He reached out and stroked its head - so small, so delicate, the bones under the skin and fur, so fragile a little life - with one finger. It purred at him.

“Nott,” he said, “Could you get a little box for me? Mollymauk might know where one is free. And see if there is any meat that the kitchens cannot give to people. I will prepare it.”

“If you’re planning to feed it up to eat it I can tell you cats don’t taste that good. Squirrel and rat are better. And here we don’t need to eat rat.”

“I am not planning to eat it, Nott. You possibly don’t remember, but cats make good pets. A pet is a good thing to have if you are planning to live somewhere for a long time.”

“Alright, “ Nott said. “I’ll do all that stuff you asked.” 

She headed back and Caleb sat down next to the kitten. It clambered up onto his lap and bumbled around a little, mewing.

“You’re safe now, little cat,” he said. “Now, are you a boy cat or a girl cat?” He checked. “Oh, a boy cat.”

The cat looked up at Caleb with big amber eyes. Caleb let himself touch the soft flanks, the velvety ears, and when the cat rubbed up against Caleb’s hand, he surprised himself with the wetness in his eyes and the tenderness in his chest.

“Hey, Caleb?” Molly, calling for him from the front of the library.

“Round here,”

Molly came around the corner, his hair a fresh bright many-shaded purple, more vivid than the wild violets that were past and gone. He was carrying a small wooden box with a scrap of blanket in it. Oh, this man. This kind violet of a man.

Molly caught sight of the kitten in Caleb’s lap.

“Oh, hello there, gorgeous!” he said, all full of delight.

“His mother is gone,” Caleb told him. 

“We’ve got a lot of strays and ferals around. They’re good for the rats. But I’ve not seen this little darling.”

Molly crouched beside Caleb and put the box down. He was smiling. He,too, stroked the kittens soft head with his index finger. Doing so put him very close to Caleb. The smell of the hair dye and conditioner was thick around Molly’s head.

Molly looked up and they made eye contact. Caleb watched Molly’s pupils widen, his cheeks darken almost imperceptibly. His pink tongue darted out to wet his bottom lip.

“It needs a name,” Molly said. “The kitten. If you’re keeping it.”

“He will be named Frumpkin,” Caleb said. 

“A good name. Shall we get him into the box and you both into the library?”

Caleb picked up Frumpkin in his cupped hands. Frumpkin wriggled and protested, but seemed happy enough in the box with the blanket. Caleb got up first and Molly passed him the box. Their fingers brushed as Molly handed it over, and it sent a tingle through Caleb.

Molly got to his feet with enviable grace. Together they got the mewing kitten into the safe inside of the library.

Inside Molly looked around. “You’ve done a lot. Some things are actually in sections.”

“Makes it easier to find things, helps me know what we need.”

He put the box on the librarians counter, and both of them leaned in to look at Frumpkin again. He had settled down onto the blanket scrap, paws tucked beneath him.

“He’s a delight,” Molly said. “I’m glad you’re keeping him.”

“I could not let a poor creature starve,” Caleb said. “Or go without what it needs.”

Molly was very close again and smiling at him. His green eyes were soft. Caleb wanted to kiss him.

He raised a hesitant hand to Molly’s cheek. He needn’t have worried - Molly pushed his cheek into the touch, almost like he himself was a cat. Caleb leaned in, watching, listening, for any sign of no, or not sure, or not now, and got nothing like it.

He brushed his lips against Molly’s, delicate, and Molly pushed back, his open mouth slotting perfectly into Caleb’s. Caleb was abruptly hungry for more, for Molly to kiss him harder, for Molly under his hands. He would like to see Molly naked someday - have this bright colourful firework of a human being sprawled naked and willing for Caleb to look at and touch however he wanted.

The idea made his cock twitch behind his fly. Molly was pressed close and must have felt it. He moaned into Caleb’s open mouth. 

He broke the kiss to say “There a back room in this place? Because I have some ideas -” and Caleb chased his mouth down, wrapped his arms tight around Molly. They were moving, stumbling, Molly going backwards until he hit a wall with a short choked noise of surprise.

“Yeah, that’s good,” he said into Caleb’s ear, then put his mouth on Caleb’s neck. Caleb had liked that a lot last time and he liked it more this time. This time Molly didn’t even approach Caleb’s shirt buttons, instead those hands were grabbing at Caleb’s arse, squeezing.

“Oh my god,” someone said. It didn’t sound like either of them. Molly froze, his eyes wide, staring over Caleb’s shoulder.

Dreading the inevitable, Caleb took his hands out from under Molly’s shirt, where they’d somehow wandered, and turned around.

Nott was staring at them, eyes huge. She was holding a bag in one hand.

“Oh my god,” she said again. She sounded like she might laugh or possibly cry. Caleb couldn’t tell.

“Ah,” he said. “Nott. I am.”

Nott shook her head. “I cannot believe you’re doing this in front of that innocent kitten. Or me.”

Molly tugged at his shirt. “Got a little carried away,” he said, his irrepressible grin firmly in place.

“I got your fucking cat food,” Nott said. “If I’d know you were going to start-” she waved her free hand “I might have taken more time.”

Then she started laughing in earnest.

“I knew you liked books, Caleb,” she said, between laughter. “I didn’t know they did that to you.”

“It’s not -”

“Oh,” Molly said. “And here I thought you were overwhelmed by my charm and good looks, and it was just the books.”

“Why are you ganging up on me?” Caleb said, helpless but not unhappy, wanting to laugh too. It had been a long time since he’d laughed freely and openly. He risked a glance at Molly, worrying that he might seem angry or disappointed or - but he was smiling.

Caleb smiled back.

“Look after your kitten,” Molly said. “Look me up later if you want - ah -” he said, looking at Nott. He actually seemed a little embarrassed.

“Gross,” Nott said. “I don’t want to know, or think about it at all. It’s like… seeing your brother kiss someone, it’s awful.”

Molly ruffled her hair on passing and said “I’ll remember this moment if you ever kiss someone.” He shot a glance back at Caleb before he left and blew an obnoxiously obvious kiss Caleb’s way.

And then Nott and Caleb were alone and she was giving him a meaningful look.

“So,” Nott said.

Briefly, ridiculously, Caleb panicked. Maybe Nott would hate him for this, not for being gay, but for the weakness of wanting someone, liking someone. But Nott wasn’t like that. She hadn’t been like that at all ever.

What came out of Caleb’s mouth, though was a stammered “I like men?”

Nott stared at him blankly.”I’m sorry, was I supposed not to know? I can pretend it’s a surprise?”

Caleb put his head in his hands.

“I don’t care who you like, but kissing is gross when you’re old.”

“Mollymauk cannot be more than twenty-seven, if he’s even that.”

“Exactly,” Nott said. “Old. And there are impressionable children here.” She gestured between herself and the box containing Frumpkin.

“I cannot believe I’m about to say this. But if you two want to be more gross -” Caleb blinked and wished to disappear. Nott took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “If you want to be more gross, please arrange for me to be. Away.”

Caleb nodded, mortified, feeling more like the teenager here than Nott. “We haven’t really had to… manage this,” he said. 

Nott nodded, very adult for a second. Caleb could see the woman she might now have a chance to grow into being, and that woman was a good one, a kind one. 

“Out there doesn’t really, uh,” she said, before stopping.

“Nott,” Caleb said, cringing inside. “Do you need to be told about… the birds and the bees?”

Her face was pure, comic horror. “No,” she said. “And if I do, I won’t ask you. I’ll ask Jester.”

“Thank God,” Caleb said.

Nott said, very fast “Anyway, I simmered some shredded rabbit in some goats milk and we can give that to the kitten and let’s never speak of this again.”

Caleb nodded. “Agreed.” He took the bag from Nott and opened it up, to reveal a little jam jar full of food.

“Enough for a couple of days, I hope,” Nott said.”I can keep aside a little from my traps now and then.”

Caleb put his arms around her and squeezed her tight. “You are a good girl, Nott.”

She rested her head on his shoulder. “I’m glad I found you. Hey. You know I want you to be happy, right? I’ll tease but - if you like him, I’m good with it.”

The complex world of adult relationships and his own feelings seemed too much to get into right now. 

“Thank you,” he said.

He made a little bowl out of a piece of cardboard, and put the food in front of Frumpkin, who sniffed at it and then inhaled it so fast Caleb was worried he would be sick. When Frumpkin had done eating, he curled up in the blanket scrap and fell deeply asleep.

Caleb already loved this little cat. It had been a little like that with Nott, too, though that had taken a little longer. Still, loving her had been as easy as one moment, and then she had become essential. Perhaps it was a weakness, as he’d been told, but it didn’t feel like one. It felt like life.

“Perhaps you could get me some small bowls or plates, if they are going free. Frumpkin will need water and food if he is to grow up strong and loved.”

Nott reached into the box and touched Frumpkin’s little belly, rounded from food.

“He’s soft,” she said. “It’s nice to touch him.”

“We can have nice things now, Nott,” Caleb said. “Within reason.”

She laughed, under her breath. Disbelieving. “I don’t know what to do with nice things,” she confessed.

“It has been a very long time for me also,” Caleb said. “I think you enjoy them, and be gentle and kind. While you can.”

Nott bit her bottom lip, revealing the scar on her chin that looked like a rat bite. She was so young and so old, all at once. All the children he’d met were. There’d been a ten year old, near Ipswich, and he had run a roadside junk stall. Living in an three wall shack, one eye blinded from injury and untreated infection. He would have been an infant when the earthquakes came, and after them the floods, the disease. He had spoken with the weary cynicism of a bitter old man.

There had to be something better, a way to build something sweeter. Given time. But it would have to start small, with things like this - with giving a girl a place to be and live and grow. With books and food and farms. With holding out a hand and saying ‘here, let me help.’


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> thigh fucking and emotions!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art by kesterite! An art MACHINE

Molly wasn’t expecting Caleb to come round. Not after Nott finding them kissing like that in the library. Caleb struck him as skittish, wary, easily shamed. So he was surprised when Yasha opened his door with no warning and pushed a blushing Caleb through it.

“I’m going to put ear plugs in,” she said, and walked off, closing the door behind her.

Caleb looked at Molly. 

“So,” Molly said. He was sprawled on his bed, supported into a sitting position with pillows, his boots off. He rested his arms behind his head and smiled at Caleb.

“Nott is watching Frumpkin,” Caleb said, blurting it out. He starting fiddling with his own fingers. The fingerless gloves were off. There were old scars on the backs of his hands, knife cuts. A human bite mark. A history in old injuries. Caleb twisted all the fingers on his left hand between thumb and middle finger, starting with the little finger and along. He switched hands.

“That’s good,” Molly said. “Caleb, darling, did you want to tell me why you’re here? You’re more than welcome, of course, but - call it curiosity.”

Caleb glanced around Molly’s room, taking in everything - the random fabrics pinned to the wall and even the ceiling, all clashing colours and textures. Cushions everywhere, leaking stuffing. A solar-powered light in the windowsill, that spent its days soaking up sun and was now on, spilling a soft pinkish light over the bed.

“I,” he said. “Before. You said you had some ideas.”

Molly stretched. His shirt rode up a little. He smirked at Caleb, hot and promising. 

“I did,” he purred. “I thought you could maybe suck me, if you like that sort of thing. Or we could jerk each other off - I’ve still not forgotten how your hand felt on my dick.”

Caleb blushed and looked at Molly’s legs in his tight jeans.

“I thought I would like to fuck your thighs,” he said.

Delightful, what a wonderful idea. They should absolutely do that. Molly’s cock was already thickening just from the thought of it.

“Yes, please,” he said. He’d only done it once before, and he’d liked it.

Caleb held up a hand. “I still do not want to take off my shirt,” he said.

“That’s fine. If that’s how you need it, that’s fine. But if you ever change your mind, I’m sure I’d love to see you.”

Caleb twisted his mouth up. “I am equally sure you wouldn’t,” he said. None of that.

Molly beckoned him. “Shoes off and on this bed, Caleb,” he said. “Enough talk.”

Caleb bent with a faint noise of discomfort and unlaced his boots, before putting them side by side next to the door. Face red, eyes huge and hungry, he crawled onto the bed and over Molly. His hair hung over his face and his mouth was open. Molly put a hand on Caleb’s cheek and leaned up to kiss him.

Caleb responded with a desperate force that made Molly’s dick get the rest of the way hard. He slipped his tongue over Molly’s, the slick slide of it intense and perfect.

Molly pulled away, nipped at Caleb’s jawline, then got his hands under his own tshirt to pull it off in one smooth slide.

Caleb’s eyes went wide on seeing him. One hand hovered, fluttered almost, just above Molly’s bare skin.

“You can touch,” Molly said. “I want you to.”

Caleb did touch, hesitantly, like Molly might vanish, or flinch, or change his mind and deny this simple thing. His long fingers stroked at Molly’s scars, his ink. They travelled the peaks and valleys of the ribcage beneath his skin, over his sensitive, soft stomach, and paused at the trail of dark hair that led down beneath his jeans. Molly caught his breath, held it tight behind his teeth.

“You’re very beautiful,” Caleb said. 

Molly offered up a shaken half smile.

“You can touch me more than that, please.”

Caleb took his fingertips off Molly’s happy trail, which made Molly almost groan out in disappointment. But he moved, and pressed one thumb hard against Molly’s right nipple.

“Hmm,” Molly managed. 

Caleb’s face turned almost sly. He flicked the thumb. Molly’s nipple hardened.

“You like that,” Caleb said.

“Very much.”

Caleb tilted his head and looked at Molly’s face.

“Gentle or hard?” he asked.

“Either’s good,” Molly said.”Hard is - ah - better.” Caleb had pinched the nipple as soon as Molly said ‘hard’.

Caleb bent his head to Molly’s other nipple. He pressed his tongue flat against it, flicked the tip over it, all the while working his thumb on the other side of Molly’s body. Molly groaned, rocked his hips upwards.

“Caleb,” he said. “Caleb, please.”

At his ‘please’ Caleb bit down at the same time as he pinched and twisted. Molly made a high pitched wanting noise and threw his head back hard. His dick ached and twitched. He wanted to be touched. He wanted Caleb’s hand.

Caleb pulled back. His tiny smile had a definite smug tinge to it. Molly grabbed a fistful of his own hair. His nipples tingled and throbbed.

“You monstrous tease,” Molly said. His voice was rough and breath thin.

Caleb made a small soft sound in acknowledgement, and then his hands dropped to Molly’s fly, knuckles brushing his hard dick behind the zip. Molly’s hips arched without his say so. Caleb’s fingers fiddled with the button, unzipped him. The release of pressure was a relief, Molly breathed out a sigh.

“Hips up,” Caleb said, his voice low and rumbling, accent thick. “Get your jeans off. Want you.”

“Want you too,” Molly said on a groan, lifting his hips off the bed. “So much, you’ve got no idea -”

“I’ve got a little bit of an idea,” Caleb says, and closed his fist around Molly’s hard dick. Molly shouted, arching almost off the bed with the wanting aching shock of it, the white-behind-his-eyes rightness of Caleb touching him. His heels scrabbed on the sheets. Caleb leaned over and kissed him hard, swallowing the end of Molly’s cry.

Caleb pulled back again, kneeling over Molly’s sprawled nakedness. He was breathing hard and obviously hard in his trousers. He undid them and pulled them down fast, cock jutting out. It was a lovely dick, curved slightly upwards, flushed red and damp at the tip. Caleb kicked his trousers off. He was now completely naked from the waist down. 

He was too thin: his hip-bones jutted out far enough for bruise-coloured shadows to form under them, and his legs were heartbreakingly skinny. But he would eat here, and fill out, become healthy and glowing. Molly thought he would love to see it, love to see Caleb’s body gain weight and muscle. 

For now, though, Caleb’s thinness wasn’t stopping Molly wanting him.

“Would you roll on your side for me?” Caleb asked and Molly would deny him nothing as long as he kept asking like that, with want in his sex-roughened voice. So Molly rolled over, his cock hard between his legs.

Caleb moved, arranged himself behind Molly. His erection pressed, hot, against Molly’s arse.

“Your thighs,” Caleb murmured, running a hand down the length of one. “And you wear those tight jeans on purpose, don’t you.”

“All that walking to get them like this? You better believe I do.”D  
Caleb growled behind him. Actually growled. It sent a bone-deep shudder down Molly’s spine. Caleb kissed along Molly’s shoulders, open-mouthed, toothy kisses. His hand traveled down to play with Molly’s dick, gather up the precome. He then spread that slick between Molly’s thighs.

Caleb fidgeted a little behind him, getting himself into position. He made a loose fist around Molly’s cock. And then, slow and careful, he pushed his own dick in the seam between Molly’s thighs. It nudged against Molly’s balls, against the base of his cock. It felt really good, shuddery and hot and dirty.

Molly gasped, let his head roll on the pillows. Caleb stuttered a bit to start - getting the angle and rhythm was awkward - but soon built up speed and confidence, every thrust rubbing against Molly just shy of where he really wanted it. Caleb was hard between Molly’s thighs, hot, and the friction chafed his skin in a way that would feel really nice under his jeans tomorrow.

Caleb’s hand tightened on Molly’s dick and he bit into Molly’s shoulder. Molly howled, thighs tightening more around where Caleb thrust, hard. Caleb moaned through his teeth into the meat of Molly’s shoulder. His cock was wet, adding its own slick as it slid through the hot flesh of Molly’s tightly clamped thighs.

Molly’s only friction came from Caleb’s thrusts jerking him fast into Caleb’s fist, not the rhythm or speed he’d have chosen, but that was part of it and he was getting close, so close, muscles tight and vibrating, toes curling and uncurling, drooling into his pillows.

“Fuck - harder, Caleb, fucks sake, I’m so close!”

Caleb breathed out, shaky, against the back of his neck, snapped his hips faster, tightened his hand a little more and it didn’t take long at all after that, Molly wailed out an animal noise and came all over Caleb’s hand. Caleb kept going with a few uneven, arrhythmic thrusts before he came with a loud groan, painting Molly’s inner thighs with his come.

He panted, nose in Molly’s hair for a while. Molly didn’t mind, he was dizzy and trembling with the force of his own orgasm.

“Fuck,” he said, eventually. “Do that any time, I mean it.” He laughed, a little shakily.

Caleb slipped his now soft cock out of the mess between Molly’s thighs. Molly leaned off the bed and found a t-shirt he’d been meaning to shred for rags anyway, and used it to mop himself off. Caleb rolled onto his back, his shirt wrinkling and catching the pink light from Molly’s little light. Outside the sun was setting, golden-rose light spilling through the ragged fabric that passed for curtains. It lit up the fine hairs on Caleb’s legs, making them seem gilded and bright. Caleb threw an arm up above his head.

“I would like to keep doing this with you,” Caleb said. “Sex, I mean.”

“Absolutely,” Molly said. “As long as you want it, I’m up for it. I’ve been having a good time so far.”

Caleb turned and smiled at Molly. His eyes creased. Molly wanted to press his mouth to the creases.

“I should go,” Caleb said.

“I don’t mind cuddling after, if you want to stay,” Molly said.

There was a pause as if Caleb was thinking about it. In it a blackbird sung out to the setting sun. 

“No,” Caleb said, eventually. “I think - for now, it is better if I don’t.”

“Alright.” Molly didn’t understand the sharp ache in him at that decision. He’d had good sex, and Caleb might become a good friend, and he wasn’t so spoiled and selfish that he’d demand cuddles from someone who probably had perfectly good reasons not to offer them.

“I’ll see you around, I guess,” Molly said, pushing all that away from him. “I guess when we next want to fuck.”

“Or sooner,” Caleb said. “Like at meals, or you can come to the library and talk.”

“Hmm, maybe. I might head out again soon.” Molly acted as much like his reputation as he could. Easy and unconcerned and happy with whatever, because that’s what this was supposed to be. “You got anything you want, add it to the list. It’s in the common room.”

Caleb got out of Molly’s bed, redressed himself. Molly couldn’t help but watch him. Caleb put his boots back on, hesitated at the door. The warm space where he’d been, next to Molly, cooled a fraction.

“I -” Caleb said. “I will see you again. Soon.” It sounded like a promise.

When he was gone, Molly rolled into the warm patch and closed his eyes.

He would go out again. Tomorrow, probably. That would fix him right up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> does this fic have a plot or a point? yes. Is it going to happen soon? It's already happening, quietly.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> uh-oh

Caleb looked at the list that Molly had told him about. The list of things that people wanted from the wasteland. It was already long, half a dozen different hands listing different things with their names afterwards.

Diane apparently wanted knitting yarn (CREAM! FOR BABIES!) and Beau wanted razor blades for some reason and Jester really wanted ‘cocoa powder PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE’ and what Caleb wanted was a list of books so long he felt bad about adding it.

He hesitated, looking at the pen hanging off the clipboard on a bit of string. Was there even space on the list? It was just that some of them were things that would really help New Refuge and the people there, and others of them were just good stories that people would like to have. It would bring some joy into their lives to have them, maybe.

But books were heavy and some of them were just for him, things he liked and missed and was that wrong? To ask Molly to haul them back out of danger just for him? Just because he and Molly had been together twice didn’t mean he could ask Molly to do him favours.

“Hey, Caleb,” Molly said from behind him. “Don’t jump, I’m behind you.”

Molly stood close behind Caleb, so Caleb could feel his body heat. His breath stirred Caleb’s hair near his ear. 

“I was just wondering -”

“Add whatever you want, but it being there’s no guarantee you’ll get it. It’s all luck. Poor Jester, she’s been begging for Cocoa for six months.”

Caleb was distracted by the long line of Molly’s body behind him. He remembered the sounds Molly made when he came. He shifted on his feet and Molly pulled back, letting the chill morning air touch him.

That was a point. It was still very early. “You’re up very early,”

Molly smiled. “So are you.”

“I don’t sleep so much,” Caleb confessed. “I get up and watch the sun rise, sometimes.”

Molly nodded. “I thought I’d head out today, which means an early start. Thinking a long trip, three days maybe?”

Oh. “Oh,” Caleb said.

“So I just grabbed some travel food from the kitchen and came here for the list.”

Molly wasn’t looking at him. He was looking at the peeling blue paint on the far wall. His eyes glittered green and the stubble on his jaw was dark. Caleb remembered the dark hair on Molly’s thighs and under his arms. On other parts of his body. Remembered Molly begging.

Molly was wearing his awful purple patched jacket and too much jewellery and Caleb was suddenly irritated.

“I was going to add books,” he said, to his feet. “But no doubt that would be too much work for you.”

“No,” Molly said, “It’s just a weight issue. If I can find them and I’m not already loaded, sure.”

Quickly, Caleb narrowed his list down to the three most essential and jotted them onto the list, with his name after them. If Molly said it was fine then it would be fine, he thought, with a confused mixture of happiness, tenderness and anger.

“They might be tricky,” he said. “They are not common books. A bigger library or a specialist store would be better.”

“That’ll be more of a problem,” Molly said slow. “City centre would be the best bet, and until Gustav and Orna sign off we’re not allowed in. It was underwater until last year? Year before?- and we have no idea how safe it is.”

Caleb shrugged. “Do not put yourself out for me,” he said, stiffly, and hating himself for it. Why was he acting this way just before Molly was to leave? Surely he should be nice, surely he should be worried for his safety?

Molly had his arms cross, his mouth set. His eyes were on Caleb’s face.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t.”

Caleb clenched his hand, letting his nails bite hard into the palm. 

One of the farmers came in through the door, a small man with sun-bleached brown hair and a limp. He nodded at Molly and Molly nodded at him, before pulling the list off the clipboard.

“Well, can’t waste the light. I’m off.” He turned his back on Caleb, shoulders tight, and walked away. Caleb waited, dithered, then followed.

He caught up with Molly at the gate.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I am tired.”

Molly nodded, slow. “You said you didn’t sleep much.” His face was impossible to read and it made Caleb scared. The anger still wasn’t gone. He didn’t like that Molly was making him feel this way and he didn’t like himself for feeling it. 

He wondered if Molly had changed his mind about wanting to have more sex with Caleb and was doing this instead of just telling him. If that was so it was cruel and unfair and Caleb would have a good reason to be upset. 

“Be safe,” Caleb told Molly, who offered up a small smile, not his big one that Caleb liked.

“Sure,” Molly said. “You enjoy the library. Three days. At most.”

It was like they were having a conversation in a code that Caleb didn’t know and it was very frustrating. Molly called up to the guard at the gate, who opened it. And then Molly waved at Caleb and smiled again, and left. The gate closed after him. He was gone.

Within minutes Caleb’s irritation and bad thoughts about Molly had drained away and all the other ones were back.

He was a small, mean, coward of a man, who was willing to be hard to the rare precious bloom that was Molly for no reason. He should be grateful that Molly would even look at him, and most likely he wouldn’t if Molly knew all the things he had done. He didn’t deserve joy or pleasure or Molly’s hands on him or the way Molly smiled. 

Perhaps that was why he had done it. To make Molly look at him like he deserved. Only Caleb deserved disgust and hate and maybe even the whole community throwing stones and sending him away -

He stopped himself, took a deep breath in and out. All of this was true, no doubt, but right now he had work to do in the library. He had to organise the cooking books. Many of them were now useless and he had an idea to get Jester to ask community members to write down their new ones, to put in the library. 

The first day was alright. He went to eat at lunch time and managed to talk to Jester, who was very kind and sweet if very loud. He asked her about the cocoa. That was a thing that ordinary people did. They asked about other people’s interests.

“Oooh, I like to bake,” Jester said. Her pretty black eyes narrowed with her wide smile. “I love to bake. I make the sourdough bread, or some of it. But I really love to make sweets. Sugar is not so hard, we have bee hives and I use honey a lot, but chocolate is very difficult to find.”

Caleb remembered chocolate. He hadn’t had it since long before the earthquakes.

“Mostly what Molly finds has gone all weeeird,” she said, twisting up her mouth. 

Molly, again. Caleb looked down at his meal, some kind of soup. The sourdough bread Jester had mentioned was there. He tore a piece of and chewed at it. 

“It is not bad, the sourdough.”

“The flours a blend. Very little wheat, lots of… other stuff. Did you know that medieval peasants -”

“Used to combine a combination of grains with toasted pea and bean? I did know, in fact. Is that what you do?”

Jester nodded. “Potato too. It makes a surprisingly good bread.”

“When I was a young boy, back in Germany, I used to like rye bread.” He was surprised at himself for mentioning it. It had been a long time.

“Maybe we’ll be able to get things like rye and spelt and wheat in the future. It would be good, I think.”

And that was that for that conversation. He didn’t know how to carry on. He ate the bread - which was good, tangy and moist with a good crust - and the soup and showed his empty bowl to Nott who gave him a thumbs up. She liked it when he ate everything.

And then he went back to the library. After he unlocked it a woman came in with a four year old girl and picked up a beginning readers book. She taught her daughter quietly in a corner. It wasn’t enough to distract Caleb. He thought of Molly, despite attempts not to. The soft way he’d looked at Frumpkin, his hand on Caleb’s face, the way his mouth tasted. How the light had shone across his skin, covering him in the gold he deserved. 

Caleb tried to organise the cooking books, weeding out what he thought was useless. 250 Calorie Meals? People needed all the energy they could get now. Microwave Cooking for Students? No.

It was against him to get rid of books entirely, but there would be better books for his community, and that was fine. He would keep them in his rooms for now.

He saw a flash of purple out of the corner of his eye and straightened, heart hammering. Molly?

No, just the child, wandering across the library clutching a book with a purple cover to her chest. 

He took in a deep breath to calm his heart. He ought not do this over a man he’d known for so brief a time. It was a crush, understandable after so long, but he would not permit himself more than that, not ever.

He had survived more than thirty years without Mollymauk, and many of them in a much worse place than this, a place where even the faintest smile could be read as weakness to be driven out and punished. He would be fine now, safe and well fed and with a task that improved the world in a small way.

Molly would be back in three days anyway, smiling and teasing, and all would be well.

Easy enough to think that on the first evening, half-sleeping in his own bed. Easy enough that second day too, his second completely free of Mollymauk since he’d arrived here. It was easy to forget what a force he was, what a whirlwind. Everything seemed duller and dimmer without him. There was less laughter, less brightness. 

Day three was the worst, waiting for Molly to get back, every moment expecting someone to come idling in and mention his return - or even Molly himself, bringing books with a grin on his face.

He didn’t come. He never came. Molly was running late. Judging by the murmured conversations he caught the edges of, it was uncommon for this to happen. 

Caleb remembered how dangerous it could be out there. His imagination, always good, summoned up images of Molly dying slow on a dusty road, eaten by wild dogs, killed by bad people. All that colour gone from the world and no-one knowing, no-one ever knowing -

He started to breathe very fast and Nott rushed him away.

The next morning people were tense. Worry thick in the air. It worsened all day until by the evening Orna was in the common room talking about sending Yasha out to find him.

“It’s only one day, darling. He probably took longer to get there than he thought, or it was late and he decided to rest.” For all his words Gustav looked worried too.

“One day can be the difference between life and death! You know that and so does he! He has never, ever been late before!”

That made Caleb very frightened. He hadn’t known it was that out of character.

“Molly keeps his promises. If he hasn’t -”

“We’ll talk more about sending Yasha out tomorrow. We don’t even know where he’s gone.”

Caleb’s throat seized.

“He - I -” he said. “I told him not to.” He dug his hands into his arms, making himself hurt. “I didn’t think he would, I said not to.”

Orna grabbed him. Her eyes were wide and bright and wet. “Not to go where,” she snarled.

“I wanted - I wanted some books, and he said the place to go would be the City Centre and you wouldn’t like it and I said not to -” only what he had said was ‘don’t put yourself out for me’ and oh no, oh no.

Orna turned on Gustav. “ Did you hear that? I remember how it used to be there. Don’t you? My god, have you forgotten? The river breaking its banks, the houses collapsing down into the chalk tunnels, running and running and all those people, the screaming - don’t you remember?” The tears were running down her face like she didn’t even notice them now. Caleb didn’t think this was only about Molly any more.

Gustav closed his eyes. “Orna,” he said, “The sun is setting. Yasha can’t do anything in the dark.”

Orna dragged herself upright, and stormed out. Gustav ran a hand over his face.

“I’m sorry about that,” he said to Caleb. “She’s lost a lot.”

Caleb rubbed his arm where she’d grabbed him. “We all have,” Caleb said.

Gustab froze, then sighed. “I suppose we have, haven’t we.”

Caleb sat in the common room and waited as the sun went down. And then a little more, drifting off into an exhausted sleep.

Nott woke him, sometime in the deep dark of the night.

“You’re going to hurt tomorrow if you sleep here.”

Caleb shook his head. 

“What’s staying here going to achieve?”

Caleb shook his head again, hunched up on himself on the sofa. The pain in his back and knees, always at least a little bit noisy, was like screaming.

“Deserve it,” he managed, through the block in his mouth. “My fault.”

“How the fuck do you figure that?”

Caleb didn’t answer, just curled up tighter and made a noise of distress.

“Fine, “ Nott said. “If you’re sleeping here I am too. I guess I’ll take the floor -”

“No!” Caleb said.

“Then I suppose you’re going to have to come back to our little flat and sleep in your bed, aren’t you? Those are your choices Caleb. Sleep here, with me on the floor, or sleep in your bed with me in mine.” 

It cut through the loud fog in his head a bit and gave him an out. He wasn’t letting himself off punishment; he was helping his dearest friend. She needed good, painless sleep and he shouldn’t keep it from her.

“Bed,” he said and rolled off the sofa onto the floor, waiting for the pain to ease a little before standing and stumbling off to sleep.

And wake, again, hurting physically and terrified in a way he couldn’t place. Wake, with the dawn, to no word of Molly.

In case, in case, oh foolish hope, he went to Molly’s house. He wasn’t there. Yasha was, pulling big boots on with a large bag next to her. Her hair fell down over her shoulders and breasts. She pulled hard on her boot laces.

“Yasha,” he said.

“I’m going out to look for him,” she said. “He might be hurt.” 

Molly might be hurt. Molly might be dead. Molly might be in the hands of people who would harm and brutalise him. Molly might be any number of terrible things. And it would be Caleb’s fault for being cruel, for pushing him, for selfish wanting of things, for for for -

A shout went up from the direction of the gate. Yasha’s head snapped up and then she was out of her chair and running in an instant. Caleb followed. He was not as strong or healthy as her and his back and knees still screamed at him but he had got good at ignoring his pain to run. 

The gate creaked open, Caleb shaded his eyes to look up at the guard who was pointing to a tree just beyond the gates - he looked over - saw a pile of rags? Cloth? Purple cloth - no, Molly. That pile was Molly.

He started to run again. Yasha got there before him and went to her knees. Caleb wasn’t far behind. He was so afraid what he might see.

He heard Yasha say “Molly, “ and then he was there and for a horrible terrible second he thought - Molly’s face was ashy and his eyes were open and dull and Caleb feared - but Molly opened his lips and spoke. He was alive, alive.

Not well, but alive.

“Hey,” Molly said. “Could I get a hand? I broke my arm and really fucked up my leg.”

Caleb could see now, could see Molly clutching his arm to his chest, could see shreds in his jeans and the denim dark with blood and the skin under split and scabbing and angry.

“Mollymauk,” he said, “how -”

“Please,” Molly said. His eyes had huge dark shadows under them. “I want some of Jesters good painkillers. I’ll explain once - once I know I’m alright.”

Yasha got an arm under Molly’s shoulders and helped him to his feet. He hissed when his weight got on the bad leg. Caleb drifted after them, uncertain, unneeded. No use.

No use at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry???


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oh no
> 
> (Molly's pov of the time he was away)

Molly sighed out as he got far away from New Refuge, breathing out everything tight and tense and strange in him. Breathe out the smell of Caleb from his lungs. It had been strange, this morning, seeing him and liking it but being irritated too, because now he had to say he was leaving. He would have preferred Caleb to find out when Molly was already four miles away and he felt a like a coward for wanting that.

He just - he just needed some time to figure this out. He’d had a few one night stands, a friends-with-benefits with Jester for a while and with Fjord for a little less time, but his experience was more limited than some people liked to assume from his flirty nature and lack of shame. He’d never had sex so intense before, or felt so many confusing things about it.

Maybe there was something wrong with him, something broken. It would make a horrible kind of sense. 

He shook it off. He preferred not to dwell. He’d head into Sprowston, he thought, maybe up past the big old Tesco up there. Explore some of the houses, the supermarket was exhausted, he’d tried it before. Spend a night out, maybe two, wrapped in the dusty silence of these places.

It went alright, really. He finally found Diane’s cream baby yarn, still sealed in plastic and stored in big bin of yarns, many falling apart from insect damage. He stuffed it down into the bottom of his pack and waited for the satisfaction of the find to hit him. It was there, but muted, flat.

The other houses weren’t great. They were empty, or the things in them were too damaged by time and environment to be useful, or they were so damaged as to be impossible to get through. He went through the window in one boxy overgrown house to find the floor under it had collapsed into a mess of splintered boards and crumbling brick. He could see down into the old guts of the world, the things that people before needed to keep their lives going. Pipes and fraying tarnished wires and cables split open to the air.

He slipped back out of the that house. The sun was creeping towards the horizon. A long day without much to show for it, which explained the sour turned-milk feeling he had. He’d sleep, somewhere with a bed not gone entirely to rot with rats nesting among the springs, and head back tomorrow. Or spend another day somewhere that might have richer pickings. Perhaps he could cut across the fields to another road, head to Wroxham, see what it was like there. He’d not been, only seen it on old maps. Lots of water on those, so maybe it was gone, but maybe it wasn’t. Could be worth a try.

He ended up wrapped in a blanket in an old playground. The chains that once held swings jingled and creaked in the air. There was a shelter with the remains of a broken bench where parents had watched their children play. He slept there, under an overcast sky and sulking moon, to the sounds of owls calling and foxes screaming into the night.

He woke with the dawn, a chorus of crows cawing loud into the air. Another hot dry day; rain would be welcome for the farm soon.

Sleep hadn’t taken his dissatisfaction and cleared it out. It lingered, sticky and poisoned in him. He hadn’t got what he wanted from this trip at all. In his sulk, he kicked a loose stone at the sagging chain link fence. It hit, and some trick of sound made the metallic shiver of noise echo loud. The shiver startled a crow picking in the grass and it scolded him as it flew away.

“Sorry,” he said, and felt stupid.

He might as well head back, he supposed.

He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to go back to well-disguised disappointment at his failure to find stuff people wanted. He didn’t want to go back empty-handed apart from some yarn that Diane would find a way to be ungrateful for. He didn’t want to go back with nothing for Jester or Yasha or - or Caleb, who would probably love those books, he’d been so anxious about asking.

And so weird yesterday morning too, it had been him that hadn’t slept over, what was all that snapping about?

He just plain didn’t want to go back yet, have difficult feelings he didn’t understand, feel small and angry and uncertain, he didn’t like it at all.

He was at the crossroads now, looking down the road that led into Norwich City proper. To his right, the path back to New Refuge. To his left somewhere else he knew vaguely from old maps. 

He looked down the road. It looked like any other, with weeds and brambles growing in the cracks in it, rusting cars abandoned at all angles. A pub to the right of him, or the burned out shell of one at least. A sign in the car park still proclaimed they had live music every weekend. Past that, some shops, windows and doors broken, blank and dusty. It looked like any road he’d ever walked.

He thought about going back with almost nothing. He thought about the small tight way Caleb had spoken to him, and his joy in the Library, and the way he sometimes smiled like someone would try and take even his smiling from him. He thought of Jester begging over and over for cocoa and never being upset when it didn’t come. He thought of Caleb, again, touching the small warm sleeping body of a kitten with tears in his eyes. He thought of books, and how they might bring the smile out more.

He took one step down the road. And once he’d taken one, another was easy. And another. Until he was past the small shops, past the bigger shop on the right, past the bus stop crushed under a bus, past the half built houses with trees growing in their empty rooms.. 

He stopped pretending he’d turn back any time.

The road angled downwards, gentle but certain. With the sun bright the ruined city spread out before him, it's broken spires and collapsed towers a warning to the wary. It looked like a graveyard, and in a way it was. Around 300,000 people had lived in or around Norwich before, and most of them were now a decade dead, left where they fell.

He felt very small looking towards what used to be a city, small and fragile and temporary under the endless, huge, heavy blue sky. He walked slower, looking all around him, careful. The evidence of the flooding started - watermarks on buildings, lines of white silt, buildings collapsed down into soft piles. He was moving into the city proper now, clambering around the rubble and rebar of an overpass that had come down and stayed down.

Under him aging concrete skittered and slid. He came down the other side and kept going, not worrying about the climb on the way back. He’d managed worse. So far he didn’t understand why Orna had been so insistent - he’d been worse, more dangerous places, equally unmapped and uncertain, and come home fine and while.

A bit further, a bit further still and then he saw a sign for a bookshop, faded but still legible and sped up but no, no the windows were broken open, and he could see from the insides that the books had floated in water for the better part of a decade. There was nothing left of them. He turned around in frustration and saw what he had missed.

The great gates of Norwich Cathedral. One smashed to rubble. Behind the wall that had come tumbling down the looming presence of the Cathedral itself, the spire cracked and fallen, the windows empty. Molly looked at it and felt a shiver inside him, and turned his face away from the beautiful thing, ruined.

And kept walking. Up a hill, round a bend, to large road full of buses on their sides, thrown drunkenly into shops, rusting away into nothing. Above them, above this wreckage, on a tall, even hill, a square box of a castle, untouched by time. It had stood for centuries, and might stand for more. Molly could imagine, looking at it, how the people who had lived here might have seen it as a promise. No matter how far we go, how things change, the past is there and solid, towering above us all gold in the light. 

But that promise was broken. The past was gone and it couldn’t be brought back. All there was now was this new future. He crossed the road, and as he did, he saw a deer walk unafraid from the darkly sun-dappled interior of a shop that called itself Waterstones. The deer looked at him, eyes liquid and wary. If he was a hunter of any stripe he could have taken it home. He took a step towards it, and it fled from him on its fast, delicate legs.

He watched after it, and when he was sure that it had gone, he peeked in to the shop where it had come from. Bookshelves sagged and broke under the weight of climbing flowers and brambles. Moss and grass grew on the mushy remains of books. A tree rooted over what had once been stairs. One day all the green space would spill out. One day in a hundred years a person who was not him would stand here and see almost nothing of a city.

Molly shook his head. This place was making him feel strange. He’d still not found anything good, just seen a lot of stuff.

A signpost still stood. It pointed the way to a lot of places, among them The Forum. He paused. He remembered that. Some kind of library? It was worth a try.

On the way he passed a cake shop. From sheer impulse he went in. In the kitchen he found possibly the last unopened supply of cocoa powder in the whole country. And that was for Jester.

He skipped on his way out, steps echoing in the still, weed choked streets.

And then finally, he was at the library. And he could get Caleb some books, he hoped. Have that smile turned his way again.

Once the forum had been a glittering thing of glass. The glass was broken now, or completely gone. The lower floor was a ruin, the carpet rotting and gone to mould. The stairs were still standing, and upstairs, where most of the books were, looked good. 

The stairs creaked under his weight, but he ignored it. He darted up them, through the open doors, and into a world that stunk of damp and aging paper. And he started to look.

After a couple of hours, he found two of the books on Caleb’s list. It was heading to late afternoon now, and if he were going to be out of the city by nightfall, he would have to go. He could come back, find more. Maybe even bring Caleb some time, let him choose. That delight would make Caleb smile bright and true, surely.

He packed the books into his back and headed out, down the same stairs that creaked again, and creaked, and shifted, and - 

And he was falling. And he was falling, and he was flailing for the earth, where was the ground? Where was it? He was scrabbling for something to solid, and he hit the ground with a burst of incredible pain, really incredible pain, and the world was falling around him, and he was gone, gone. Gone but here, gone but staring up at a hole in the stairs above him. Gone properly, and then back, and then gone again.

And finally back, and the light was gone, and he couldn’t see. Was he blind? No, no, he could see his hand in the gloom in front of his face. It was just dark. It was just night. It was dark, he was alone, and everything hurt.

No, no no no, this was a nightmare. It had to be. He was safe and warm and he got to eat things and he had a name. He wasn’t in the earth again. He wasn’t alone and cold and in the dark and afraid, he couldn’t smell dirt and dust and his own blood, he would not have to claw his way to life again, he wouldn’t he couldn’t, he couldn’t no no no - he was saying it out loud and the world swallowed up his noises, swallowed him up, he wasn’t dead again no no no.

He thrashed to try and get himself out and he was Mollymauk, his name was Molly, he had chosen it. He thrashed and his arm wouldn’t move and it hurt so much. His left arm. He couldn’t move his left arm.

Somehow he wasn’t under the weight any more. Somehow he was on the ground breathing in ragged desperation. His arm still hurt. His leg too, and his leg felt wet and hot. Oh no. Oh no. He had fucked up. He had fucked up and was hurt. No-one knew where he was. He might die here in this rubble with a bag full of books, yarn and cocoa powder. He was breathing very fast. It was very hard to get enough air.

He was going to die, he was going to die, he was going - NO.

He held his next breath and let it out in a deliberate whoosh. In slow, out slow. He was not going to die, not here, not now. He would get back and Jester would fix him. He was not under the earth and dying. He was Mollymauk, his life was real, he was real, and he was going to go back to it.

It took some time to get to his feet. His leg didn’t like it much, but he gave it a stern - well, a tearful - talking to about being able to rest back at New Refuge. His arm hung in a way that made him feel sick. It ached with a deeply wrong aching. He clutched it to his body with his other and took one, agonised step. And then another.

He thought -the radio. It was in his bag - but it came out in pieces, worthless broken things. Shit, shit.

He kept going through the night, sticking to roads that were easy. He had to double back multiple times to avoid broken buildings, pile ups of cars and once a place where a whole street had fallen down into a hole. On this last one he let himself cry a little outside an overgrown park. He just hurt so much and he wanted to stop.

He didn’t let himself. 

Dawn made it easier. He finally made his way out, nowhere near where he had come in, and had to figure out his way home when he recognised nothing. He could see his leg now. It wasn’t good. His jean leg was dark and stiff with blood, and the wound was still oozing. He thought there might be bits of stairs in it still. He could feel the heat off it without even touching it. It screamed with every step. He was torn between his arm and his leg, which was worse. Both were, or both were terrible in completely different ways.

It took him so long to get anywhere. Not knowing where he was going didn’t help. He had to hope he was going the right way. Around midday he finally let himself sit, too desperate not to. He peeled his jeans away from the wounds. They were deep, ragged, ugly, and the skin around them felt hard and hot.

Molly laughed, a little hysterically. “You are in so much fucking trouble, Mollymauk,” he said.

He must have slept there, in overgrown grass under the blazing sun, or passed out, or something, because he woke up in his own sweat, grimy and shivering, with every part of his body telling him something was wrong. He didn’t know what day it was but how hungry he was suggested he had slept through another night. There was dew on his jacket.

“I know,” he said to his body. “I know, alright? I know.”

Standing back up was somehow worse this second time. 

“We’ve got to. We’ve got to move. Just a little more, alright, walk a little more, we’re nearly there.”

He didn’t know if that was true.

He stopped caring after a little while, caring only about one foot in front of the other, keep going until he fell down. He wasn’t going to give up. He’d keep walking until he fell apart if that was what it took.

He was so in this mode so long that he was looking right at the landmarks he wanted for a while before he recognised them. He could have kissed the Weird Decorative Rock. Could have married it.

But it was already heading to dark. And they didn’t open the gates after dark, not for anyone, not even him. Which was good and fine and safe but he wanted something to eat and Jesters good painkillers and someone stroking his hair and telling him he’d done so well when it had been so hard. He wanted Caleb to do that, but he’d take anyone.

He turned. Nothing liked that. He felt slow and sick and his leg was numb over the wounds and his head ached and he thought he might really have fucked up this time. He pointed his feet to home and followed them.

When he saw the wall ahead of him he thought: oh good. I don’t have to walk any more. He was done. He sat down at the base of a tree and let sleep take him.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oh dear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art by the delightful kesterite on tumblr. Go follow them and tell them how much you love it.

Molly was back. Molly was alive. He was safe. He had not died. (he still could) Caleb told himself these things (you saw the infection, he could still die) and ignored the others. He could not explain the panic at the thought of this loss when there had been so many. It was only that things had been so hard and joyless for so long and Molly was pure joy packaged up in a man. 

Molly was rushed away to be treated by Jester. Caleb went to the library because that was what Caleb did here, in New Refuge, and there was no reason to stop it. He could not help Jester. He had the medical knowledge of those who survived, how to cauterise a wound and how to bandage yourself and how to make a splint and Jester no doubt knew more.

He wanted to be there. Like somehow his presence and watching could change anything, stop the worst, though it never had before. He had been eyes open, watching, every time bad things happened.

And besides. He would be no good, maybe even do harm. He wouldn’t put it past himself, the man who broke everything, to somehow make Jester fuck up, purely from being there.

He was already to blame. No need to make it worse.

The Library was quiet, and he tried to lose himself in organising, arranging, the good solid busywork, but his problem has always been his keen brain and flawless memory. That same memory kept the image of Molly’s grey skin and glazed eyes, dry mouth. Blood on his jeans, dark and old. The arm moving wrong.

“Caleb, you in here?”

Caleb stood up from where he had been kneeling, staring blankly past two different books for who knew how long.

“Fjord,” he said. He hadn’t spoken to Fjord much. The man seemed nice, but even more unreadable than most.Tall and very dark skinned, with vitiligo on his lower face. A southern accent, American southern, which - Caleb was a German in England, but he thought that maybe that accent was faked.

Fjord was carrying two books.

“Jester told me that Molly told her to bring these to you,” Fjord said. 

“Oh,” Caleb said. “He - he’s -”

“Hurt, but resting. Not allowed home yet, Jester wants to keep an eye on his leg.”

Caleb walked forward feeling like his legs weren’t really his. He held out his hands for the books.

Molly had done it. Molly had found them. Where, Caleb had no idea. One book was the Self Sufficiency Guide he had remembered seeing a long time ago. It was as useful as he remembered, with instructions on building all kinds of things and crop rotation and companion growing and how to pickle and preserve things. It would be a valuable addition to the library.

The other was - oh. He sighed and ran a hand down the cover. Gormenghast. He’d read the trilogy probably far too young for it. His well worn copies of the books had been forced from him long ago. Collecting them again, no matter out of order or how long it took - it meant a great deal. He might even find the fourth, published so long after Peake’s death.

Molly had found this for him. Molly had, without knowing, found the most essential book on the list. Molly had found him a part of his past, whole and untainted, and had nearly died for it.

Caleb wanted to weep. He wanted to be sick. He wanted to laugh and smile. He wanted to thank Molly and be with him and he wanted to stay far away so he would never hurt Molly again.

“You alright there, Caleb?” Fjord was looking at him strange.

“Ja. Yes. It is - This is a very good book,” he said.

“Yeah? Then I reckon Molly deserves a thank you, once Jester lets people see ‘im.”

Caleb was overcome by a rush of shame. Was he really considering avoiding Molly? After this? Not only a selfish man to blame for Molly’s suffering, but a selfish one seeking to avoid the truth of that.

“You are right,” Caleb said softly. 

“Yeah. Just… lot of people aren’t as grateful for what he does as they should be. They forget. We forget. That’s it’s work, even though he likes it. That every time he leaves he’s in danger. Think we all got a reminder.”

“I am - I am very grateful.” Caleb could barely speak. He kept running his thumb over the book cover, over and over and over, feeling the smooth silky glossiness, the cracks formed by reading and time, the corners feathering way into worn paper texture. “I cannot - I cannot -”

“Caleb?” Fjord sounded far away. Caleb wanted him to be far away.

“I cannot imagine not being grateful to anyone here,” he said, and it was true. They let him live here even though he was so full of wrong badness that it spilled out to take the people around him. They let him stay here even though he was so terrible it must be obvious, written all over his face. It was already branded on his skin.

“You, ah, been getting to know Molly, then? You seem more upset than I’d have guessed -”

Caleb almost laughed. Getting to know, that was one word for it. But - hadn’t he? They’d talked some, in between making each other come. Enough to know he liked the man, that he thought Molly was kind and funny. He was cautious with his liking these days, but Molly had coaxed it out without Caleb even known he was doing it.

“We’ve talked some,” Caleb said. “I like him. I enjoy his company.”

Fjord snorted. “He can be very personable that’s for sure. Can be a complete shit too.”

Caleb looked up sharp. “Weren’t you just talking about gratitude?”

“I can like him and be grateful for what he does for us and still know he can be a shit. You just ain’t seen it yet. You will, Jester was talking about keeping him confined to New Refuge for at least six weeks, he’s gonna be unbearable.”

“Six weeks is how long it takes a cleanly broken bone to heal, on average,” Caleb said. Remembered the way Molly’s arm had hung wrong again. 

Fjord shrugged. “Anyway, I gotta get back to it. Someone wants me to fix the chicken coop. Keep the foxes away.”

Always something to do, always a place to be. Caleb wants him to go but doesn’t want to be alone. Wants to talk to this man who knows Molly well enough to call him a shit, ask all the things Caleb hasn’t thought to.

Or he could ask Molly himself, later, when Molly was up to visitors.

He touched the book again. 

Later came, as later always does. And Caleb didn’t visit. He went home and lay in his bed where Molly had never been and kept Gormenghast beside him and touched the cover but didn’t read it. Nott knocked and Caleb told her he was fine, and she hesitated but went away. He didn’t deserve her either, he was coward who couldn’t face the damage he’d done.

He didn’t visit the next day either. He couldn’t. He told himself it was for the best.

Of course, he forgot how small this community was, and how interfering the people were. Jester came into the library.

“Caleb,” she said, elongating all the vowels in his name. “I haven’t seen you in daaays.”

“Just not feeling very social I suppose, Jester,” he said.

“Hmmm,” she leaned over the desk and propped her chin in her hands. She was revealing a deep cleavage that might have been appealing to someone who was attracted to women.

“I haven’t had the chance to tell you that I have cocoa now! Molly brought it back for me. I was going to make something tasty, did you want me to bring you some here?”

“That is good.”

“It is! He’s had lots of visitors, though some of them shouted at him. Is that why you haven’t come? Are you scared you’ll shout at him?”

Caleb looked down at his hands.

“I would not shout at him,” he said. “Who shouted at him.”

“Orna, mainly because she was scared, and Beau because Beau doesn’t like to admit that she cares about him.”

Caleb carefully shelved a copy of Organic Gardening On A Budget.

“Is he well?” he asked. His heart was beating very fast.

“The infection is clearing up just fine, though I think the deepest cut will scar. But then he already has so many.” Jester paused. She sounded cheerful but her gaze was steady and grave. “He asked after you.”

Caleb let his hands drop down by his side. “I have meant to visit, I have,”

Jester had her head tilted, looked at him like she - like she was studying him. 

“It would be a kind thing if you did,” she said. “Don’t let him fool you, he’d more tender than he lets people see, and right now he is hurting and he walked home ten miles with those injuries and when he got back people he cares about shouted at him and other people won’t even come say hello, how are you.”

Caleb laughed out something bitter and pained and sarcastic.

“Did he do something wrong?” Jester said, her voice in a gasp “If he did I am going to make him make it right.”

“No,” Caleb said. “No.”

“Oh,” Jester said. “You should tell him so because he thinks he did. Anyway, I have to go make sure he eats something, he is being a complete pain. See you soon!”

And she was gone, a round soft ball of endless energy and surprisingly good manipulation skills.

When Caleb was done with his day, he went to visit Molly. 

He had never been in Jester’s clinic before. It was big, clean. Molly was on an actual hospital bed, who knew where they’d got it. When Caleb came in, hands tangled in each other, Molly smiled at him, big and real, and it was like rain after drought.

Molly still looked tired, but his skin was not grey any more and his eyes didn’t look bruised with exhaustion. He didn’t look so badly hurt. Caleb let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.

“Thank you for the books, Mollymauk,” Caleb said, standing at the end of his bed.

“No problem,” Molly said. There was a pause. In it, Jester loudly announced she needed some more… things, and left.

“Are you going to shout at me? If you are I’d rather you waited.” 

“I am not here to shout at you. I am here to apologise to you.”

Molly frowned. “What for?”

“For -” for being me, Caleb wanted to say. “For asking for the books. It is my fault you are hurt. You could have died and it would have been because I - because I was selfish and nasty and-”

Molly held up a hand. “Is that why you didn’t come visit before?”

“Yes. I did not think I deserved -”

Molly laughed, hunched in on himself. “Fuck off, Caleb. No - I didn’t mean leave. I meant - stop talking such utter shit.”

Caleb stopped, staring at Molly, who was frowning at the sheets over him.

“Every time I leave,” Molly said, “There’s a chance of this. I’m an adult. This is my job. I knew the risks, I ignored them. That’s on me, not you, and you know what? I won’t lie, I wanted to bring those books back for you. But that was me, choosing to. You don’t get to use me to hurt yourself and tell yourself lies because that’s shitty.”

Molly’s voice was loud, not quite shouting. It shook. He was looking at Caleb’s face. The self hate didn’t vanish, perhaps nothing could make that happen, but some of the power went out of it. 

“I thought you - I thought you hated me for some reason. I thought I’d fucked everything up and you hated me and weren’t ever going to talk to me again and I like you, so I didn’t want that to happen. I barely know you but I wanted you here to - to -”

Molly waved an irritated hand in the air. “It doesn’t matter what I wanted.”

Caleb moved up beside the bed to the chair though, so Molly could see him. He sat down. He would like to do whatever Molly wanted, make up for everything. Thank Molly for saying Caleb was not to blame, even if he still thought he might be. 

“It does matter. I barely know you, too. I want to, though. I am sorry, for not coming. I was being a coward.” The truth, as Caleb felt it.

“You’re here now,” Molly said.

“What did you want me to do?”

Molly looked away from him. “It’s stupid,” he said.

Caleb reached out and touched Molly gently, on the arm. “I was afraid when you did not come back,” he said.

Molly closed his eyes. “I was so scared,” he said. “I could barely think. Everything hurt and I was scared.”

“Tell me,” Caleb said. And Molly told him.

When it was done, Molly looked tired and limp against the bed. Caleb smoothed a curl away from his face. “That was very difficult to do. You were brave,” he said. 

Molly held his hand tight in his.

“Visit again?” he asked. “We can share important information, like - our favourite colours and if we prefer winter or summer, if we like the rain or it makes us sad - you know. Getting to know each other shit.” He laughed. 

Caleb thought he was learning what Molly’s different laughs meant. That one was nervous and uncertain.

“Yes,” Caleb said. “I would like that.”

When he left, later, Molly’s words echoed in his head. Don’t use me to hurt yourself. Was that what he had been doing? He had told himself he had been protecting Molly from himself, but Molly had been so hurt and sad.

He still felt guilty and sick and to blame, hunted by his own worse self. But if Molly said he wasn’t - surely Molly knew more about why he did things than Caleb did? He just didn’t know. But it had been good to see Molly, have him smile.

Perhaps - perhaps it would be alright? Making Molly smile was a good thing to do, he was sure of it. And if punishing himself would make Molly upset, perhaps it was alright to not do it so much? 

The relief he felt at giving himself an out was immense. He gripped it. He dwelled in it. He would visit Molly again. He would read his book. He would keep doing this until he no longer could.

Caleb visited the next day, and learned about Molly. Molly liked purple, he enjoyed the first blossoms of spring and the heavy heat of summer. These small things, Caleb learned. They did not tell him who Molly was in his deepest hearts, but they built a framework around it. The thing that was most telling was how Molly could like things with no fear or doubt or justification, with a simple, almost innocent joy in it.

He liked chickens, too. “Doesn’t stop me eating them,” Molly said with a shrug, “But I like the noises they make and their vicious little characters.”

And Molly laughed with no shame, no sense he should maybe hide his delight. Caleb seemed to make him laugh a lot and it filled him with a warm, fluttery feeling, that he had the power to do that. Him. Who people had mainly laughed at, not with.

“Have you ever been in love, Molly?” he asked, without understanding why.

“Nope,” Molly said. “Not once.” He said it with an airy lack of concern. “Is it fun?”

“Not necessarily,” Caleb said. “Not always. Not if you love the wrong kind of person.”

Molly’s face went soft. “What happened, Caleb?”

Caleb had already said too much and didn’t answer.

The next day Jester said Molly could go to his own bed.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly's issues part 1: the beginning

Jester had sent him off just that morning, and Molly had no wish to loiter around staring sadly at people for the whole day.

The problem with Molly was he bored easily. And the problem with being stuck in New Refuge with a broken arm and strict orders not to overstress himself was- that it was deeply, terribly boring.

The thing that was good was more time with the kids. Everyone over about twelve had to do something, but they had more time to play. A good society couldn’t be built on the suffering and misuse of the weakest and most needy of the populace. Gustav had said that, and Molly agreed, just in less complex words.

Molly thought that children deserved to play.

There were maybe twenty kids in New Refuge aged between about 4 and 17 - right now a small pack of children between the ages of 7 and 10 were playing an absorbed game where they were apparently heroes with swords defeating bad guys, who also had swords. Who were the bad guys and who were the heroes was a constantly changing thing. Molly was sitting in the grass, shouting out advice.

“No no, Daisy, you want to be more aggressive,” he called out. Daisy, a tiny whirlwind of a child with missing front teeth and lots of corkscrew black hair screamed and ran at Lynn with a truly terrifying scream, raising her stick high.

“But not in the face!” he remembered, just in time.

He rested his good arm along his crossed legs. One of the quieter kids, Vijay wandered up and sat next to him. He had a daisy chain in his little hands and offered it to Molly with a shy smile.

“Is that for me?” Molly said. 

Vijay nodded. 

“Thank you, Vijay. It’s my favourite new piece of jewellery.”

He took it with a great deal of gentleness and placed it on his head like a crown. It slipped a little, lying crooked among his curls.

“There you are,” Nott said from behind him.

“Hello, darling. You were looking?”

Nott glanced at the children playing, at Vijay curled up in the shadow Of Molly’s body - looked with a kind of desperate lonely hunger.

“I wanted to ask something. I thought - Caleb’s amazing, he can do so much, but you - you’re better at getting people to like you.”

Molly patted the ground next to him with his good arm. “And you want people to like you.”

Nott nodded. She had so many little cuts and scars on her face.She sat down, looking tense and wary and ready to run at any time.

“I just - I never learned. When I was supposed to be learning how I was-” she shook her head. “Well, it wasn’t good. I don’t know how to make friends and I want to.”

“You have Caleb. If you want, you could have me, too.”

Nott shifted on the ground and hugged her knees to her narrow chest. Dandelion fluff was caught in her hair.

“Yeah, but I want - I want friends my age. That’s not - it’s not betraying him, is it? I’m all he’s had and -”

“It’s not at all.”

Molly picked a dandelion and blew the seeds into the air to watch them fly and float away.

“You can’t make people like you,” he said. “People will feel what they feel. But if you are kind, and if you listen to people, and if you reach out and let them reach back, there’ll be people who like who you are.”

Nott glared at him. “So, what, I just go up to someone and ask them - what?”

“To spend time with you. To do something with you. I don’t know, what do you like doing?”

Nott sighed and looked away. “Dunno,” she said. “Never really got to find out. I kind of liked collecting stuff, I guess? Not useful stuff, no room for it all after a while.”

Oh, that hurt him. She deserved useless things, pointless things, things that made her happy. She deserved a life, not just the teeth-gritted bloody work of surviving.

“Well,” he said. “I know Toya has a collection of bottle caps, and Yasha’s older than you but she presses flowers. What might you want to collect?”

Nott shifted. “Pretty things, “ she said. “Things that shine and glitter.”

Molly had a genius idea. He reached up and undid one of his earrings - the (probably fake) diamond and gold one.

“Hand out,” he told Nott, and dropped the earring into her dirty palm. She looked down at it with big eyes.

“Molly,” she said, then narrowed her eyes again. “And what will you expect in return?”

“Nothing,” Molly said. “Nothing at all. I’ve got loads. That’s yours now.”

“I don’t believe you,” Nott said. “Everyone wants something. That’s just how it is. All sorts of things you could expect for this.”

Molly sighed. “I promise you. It’s just a gift. It’s utterly meaningless to me, if it helps. An impulse born of the moment. I’m a very impulsive person.” It was the best kind of lie, the sort that was a truth from a different angle.

Nott closed her hands around the earring. “You better not try and take it back. You said it’s mine now.” Her eyes were wet and glittering.”You said it’s mine.”

“It’s yours,” Molly said. “And talk to Toya. I think you’ll like each other. You’re a bit more feral than she is, but -”

Nott hissed. “Feral!” She raised a hand.

“You can’t hit me!” Molly said.”My arm is broken!”

Nott was truly terrifying when she glared. So tiny, and so scary. 

“Just you wait,” she said. “When you’re all better I’m going to get my revenge.”

“Scurry off, you little horror,” Molly said, laughing. 

After she was gone, he watched the children play for a little long, and then went back to his room, where he lay on the bed and stared at his ceiling. His arm ached, a deep-but-healing kind of ache, and the way Jester had treated it left it basically an immobile lump on the side of his body. The cuts on his leg itched. Apparently that was good, and meant they were healing. 

Molly tried to unbutton his jeans with one hand and failed. Jester had helped him on with them and he hadn’t really considered his jump-and-wriggle technique and how one arm might making dressing and undressing himself difficult.

Horror of horrors. He might have to spend the next six weeks in jogging bottoms. No. Loose fit. Drawstring waists. Truly a nightmare beyond bearing. 

Someone coughed behind him when he has his jeans open and tugged down awkwardly past one hip bone and stuck on the other one.

He turned round, expecting Yasha, or Jester, but it was Caleb, one eyebrow raised. He was carrying a small stack of books.

“Your door was open, I - having trouble?”

Molly pointed at his injured arm, and then his jeans, and put on a winning smile. 

“Give me a hand? I’ll make it worth your while…”

Caleb blushed. “Ah,” he said. “I will put these down and help you. But you do not need to - ah.”

“What else would you be here for?” Molly said, carelessly. “That’s what we do.”

Caleb paused for the briefest slice of time, and put the books down on an uneven chest of drawers, overflowing with Molly’s clothes.

“I came to bring you books,” he said, looking away. “And to see if you were alright.”

“Well,” Molly said, “Plausible excuses out of the way, why not undress me?”

Caleb sucked in a breath. 

“I will help you undress, but not in return for - sexual favours..”

Molly didn’t know what to say. It had only been a half serious offer, an acknowledgement of what would probably happen anyway. He’d enjoy it fine too, even though if he was honest he was tired and not really in the mood. But surely that’s what Caleb was here for, so why was he being so weird about it? 

Caleb was hesitant with Molly’s jeans, his fingers gentle and tender. Together they got them past Molly’s knees, and then he stepped out of them, leaving him in his ratty boxers and a sleeveless top with huge arm-holes which was the only thing he could get his broken arm through. Not his sexiest look. He hoped Caleb didn’t want anything especially energetic or imaginative, he really didn’t have it in him tonight. 

Molly sat down on the bed and smiled up at Caleb. Caleb had the strangest expression on his face. He turned away, and Molly watched the light glinting in Caleb’s hair.

When Caleb turned back round he was holding the books again. He sat next to Molly on the bed.

“I did not know what you might like. You will be stuck in New Refuge for a while, so -”

Molly lifted the top book off the stack. It was huge, a bit much for him to manage with one hand. It was Lord of The Rings.

Molly opened it and flicked through a little. It was small print, and dense, and full of difficult words.

“This might be, uh,” he said. “Look. I can read, don’t you start thinking I can’t. But not well. Not this well.” He laughed, nervous. “I’m kind of stupid.”

Caleb looked fierce. “You are not,” he said. 

Molly looked through the others without answering, set aside a horror novel and a story about a girl who dressed up as a boy to be a knight. They both looked fun, and like he could read them. He shot Caleb an anxious smile.

“Sorry, you went to such effort,” Molly said.

“I will never regret - I -”

Caleb was looking at him and his eyes were wide. He brushed a bit of hair behind Molly’s ear and Molly shivered. Caleb leaned forward and kissed Molly, and that was more like it, more what Molly had expected.

Molly tried to pull them both back onto the bed with his one good arm, escalate things, get it over and done with - fuck, that sounded bad even thinking about it, but he hadn’t slept in his own bed for more than a week and he still felt strange and wobbly and displaced, and he just wanted it to be quick, ok? That was all. He liked Caleb, he liked sex, he likes sex with Caleb, this was going to be fine.Not the best fuck of his life, but fine.

Caleb didn’t go with him though, and when Molly ran his hand down Caleb’s arm, along his thigh and towards his dick, Caleb stopped him.

Caleb broke off.

“I don’t want to have sex,” he said.

Molly frowned. “Alright?”

“I want to kiss you, and hold you, but I do not want to have sex.”

Molly pulled back and held his arm tight across his chest.

“Alright,” he said again. “That’s - that’s fine?”

“You don’t seem fine,” Caleb said. “You seem upset.”

“I’m not going to make you if you don’t want it, that’s fucked up.” Molly looked down at the ugly, scabbed cut on his thigh. “I just would like to know what I did wrong? To make you stop wanting me.”

Caleb cradled his face in one hand. “I still want you,” he said. He was frowning. “I just would rather do the kissing without the sex tonight.”

“I don’t - I don’t understand.” Molly was so fucking stupid. Why was he so upset? He felt like he wanted to cry. Caleb was saying this like it was all normal and simple and it wasn’t anything Molly knew. “I - that’s not what anyone wants from me.”

Caleb just - looked at him and it was awful.

“I mean,” Molly said. “I have done just kissing but it was before I started fucking, and you do know who I am, right? Since I started - since then anyone who’s kissed me has also wanted to get to the orgasm and that’s fine. I’m fine with it. Good with it, even, I want to be that for people, I want to make them happy and content and - people don’t want someone like me just to kiss and cuddle a bit, Caleb.”

Caleb nodded. “Well, I do,” he said. “Lie down? Under the covers.”

Molly did. He felt scraped raw, shredded. Caleb slipped in with him on the left side, fully dressed, and leaned in for a soft kiss. More lips than tongue, no teeth at all. Gentle. Not desperate or heated or hungry. When the kiss stopped it left sweetness in Molly’s mouth. Caleb rested his head on Molly’s chest, above his heart. He breathed in, and sighed out a long breath before turning his head into Molly’s chest, and squeezing him tight.

Molly looked down at Caleb’s head. It felt good, just to be held. It felt so good. It was like something in him had been starving and finally had something good to eat.

“I am glad you came back alive,” Caleb said. It was muffled by Molly’s top and by Molly’s body. “I couldn’t do this with you in the clinic. I can do it now.”

“I like it,” Molly said. “I could get used to this.”

He buried his nose in Caleb’s hair, kissed the top of his head.

Yeah. He could get used to this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me??? Give fictional characters my traumas and psychological issues????? 
> 
> NEVER


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly's issues part two: oh, wow, those go deep huh
> 
> (also a blowjob)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Art by Kestertite.tumblr.com as always. Love them.

Caleb didn’t mean to fall asleep in Molly’s bed, but he did. It was the best night’s sleep he’d had in a very long time, no nightmares. Instead, surrounded by the smell and the heat of Molly, he dreamed of purple things - Lavender, lilacs, violets, all the purple flowers he’d ever seen - blooming together with no care for soil type or season. He walked in this sea of clashing purples, he touched the petals with his fingertips, and they sighed as he passed.

He woke with the early blush of sunrise, his fingers tangled in Molly’s hair. Molly breathed deep and easy, but murmured when Caleb untangled his fingers. His eyes opened, dark in the half light, hazed with sleep.

“I have to go,” Caleb said. He didn’t want Molly waking up thinking Caleb had just snuck out.

“Aw,” Molly whined. “Don’ wanna. Stay.”

Caleb chuckled under his breath. “I have to get ready to work.”

“Kaaay,” Molly said, and tilted his face for a kiss. A clumsy, wet, sleepy kiss. Still nice, still good. 

Molly sighed. “Come see you, maybe,” he said, before falling back into sleep with enviable ease.

Caleb looked at him for a while, stood beside the bed. The bulky bandages and - splints? - of Jester’s arm fix were weighing on Molly, even in sleep, but it was better than pretty much every alternative Caleb’s anxious brain could conjure up. And he looked beautiful, in this and every light.

There was a blooming tenderness in Caleb’s heart, something small and soft and precious. He could root it out, he knew, destroy it with ease while it was still a tiny whisper of a thing. But he didn’t want to. He knew it would hurt him later if he didn’t, that it would all come to tragedy, but it felt so wrong to kill that little curling promise of hope and joy. Even if it would most likely be a lie, it had been so long since he felt anything like it.

Let it grow, if it wanted to. He’d not hurt nor help it. He pressed a soft kiss to Molly’s warm, black-stubbled cheek, let himself like the tingling scrape of the coarse hairs under the tender skin of his lips. And he left, to change into clothes he hadn’t been wearing for four days, and to do his work.

It was a busy day. Lots of people wanting books, and a few people had heard his idea about stocking things from the actual populace and came with ideas of what they could provide. He might have to talk to Gustav and Orna about tracking down a printing press, making paper. It wasn’t just the old things that should be preserved but the new information, the new stories being born.

He wanted, he thought, to maybe write a book himself. A history, of how the world changed and then how this community came together. People in the future would want to know these things. He couldn’t write about everything, but about this - yes. A mark in time. One day these struggles would be generations past, and all that anyone know was what survived that far.

He started scribbling down his ideas, his own memories - he would want stories from the others here, about the early days. Gustav and Orna, obviously, Molly had been here for a while - it was an excellent idea. The joy of creating it, bringing it into the world, carried him through until his stomach, now used to regular meals, growled at him.

He headed to the common room for lunch. On his way, Jester intercepted him.

“Caaay-leb,” she said, grinning. Oh no. “I was up early this morning, and guess what I saaaw.”

“A dragon,” Caleb said.

“No, silly, don’t be silly. I saw you, leaving Molly and Yasha’s and it was reeeallly early.”

Caleb went hot all over and knew he was blushing. Jester was grinning at him, black eyes full of delight.

“It - I - Jester, that is my own personal business and I -”

Jester shook her head. “Molly is recuperating, and he is not to do anything strenuous, Caleb, I am disappointed in you -”

“We just - we kissed,” Caleb hissed. “I would not put his recovery in jeopardy -”

“Oh, so something is happening! I wasn’t sure, you know!”

Caleb paused, backed up in the conversation a little, and realised he’d fallen into a trap.

“Jester,” he said. “It is - I am - we are- I am not sure if Mollymauk would want -”

“Oh, he always tells me everything so if he’s not mentioned this it’s because he’s worried you don’t want people to know,” Jester said. “Are you ashamed of it?”

“Not - not ashamed!” The very idea of being ashamed of getting Molly to touch him. He was stunned and amazed. “Just. Private. It’s not - it’s not a relationship. We’re just having some fun.” Molly’s words, or a paraphrase of them, felt strange on his tongue.

Jester nodded. “He does like fun! Did he tell you we slept together back when - when he first came here?”

Caleb almost choked. “He did not,” he said.

“Oh, we did. It was a lot of fun. Then we had a threesome with Fjord there and that was fun too.”

Fjord too. Now that was a mental image. Fjord and Molly, touching each other.

Jester was still talking.

“But after a while he got to be just our friend, without the sex bit.” Jesters eyes were shrewd. “Does that bother you?”

“Does- does what bother me?”

“That he likes women. That he’s slept with me and Fjord and probably a few other people. Any of it.”

Caleb frowned. “Why should it? It’s his life and body.” 

Jester smiled, and why did Caleb feel like he’d passed some kind of test?

She linked her arm with his, which meant he had to bend a little to the side because she was shorter than him and they went into the common room together. Jester stopped dead in the doorway.

“Oh, Molly,” she said. “What are you wearing?”

“I’m doing my best, ok? I can’t get my jeans on by myself any more!”

What Molly was wearing, was, in fact the same bleach and dye stained jogging bottoms he’d worn to dye his hair, and a tshirt with the arm cut out and seam loosened raggedly to make space for his broken arm. The tshirt had once been pink and proclaimed ‘selfie queen’ in a faded and cracked print. It was too short for Molly, stopping just under his ribcage.

Somehow he still looked amazing to Caleb. Maybe it was the soft brown skin of his belly and the dark hair below the bellybutton that made Caleb like the look. Maybe it was just Molly.

Jester was looking at Caleb’s face, and then Molly’s, and definitely caught Caleb looking at Molly. And maybe she caught the smile on Molly’s face too, bright and slow and happy, shockingly intimate and real. Caleb didn’t much care. He patted her on the hand and let her arm go.

“It looks as good as anything else you wear,” he told Molly, meaning it as a compliment.

Beau, however, cackled from a sofa. “Told you you dress like a circus ate a goth club and threw it up again!”

“And I told you, Beauregard, that’s the look I’m going for.” 

Caleb surprised himself with a laugh. An actual, real laugh. It was a surprise, and it sounded so uncommon and wrong and rusty that it stopped almost as soon as it had started, but it had been there. He had laughed.

He made his way over to sit beside Molly. Not close enough that they were touching, but close enough to catch the smell of him whenever he moved. When the conversation had moved on he leaned in to murmur into Molly’s ear.

“I have been told not to, ah, let you tire yourself. Jester knows.”

“Oh,” Molly said. “I didn’t tell her.”

“It’s alright,” Caleb told him, and to his surprise it was. “I don’t plan to annoy her, though. I think she might kill me.”

Molly looked as though he were going to protest and then said - “No, you’re probably right. But wait -” he lowered his voice further. “Six weeks and no. Um.”

“Oh, I didn’t say that,” Caleb said, and enjoyed watching the tiny shudder go down Molly’s spine. “Just have to find ways to make it not too energetic.”

Molly looked at him. His eyes were dark, his smile wicked. “Tonight?”

Caleb nodded, shocked at his own straightforward daring, and grabbed a dish as the food went round. He ate without tasting the food, trying too hard not to look at Molly.

Before he went back to work he murmured “Tonight,” into Molly’s ear, so that everything was sure and certain and right. When he left he caught Jester looking at him, very steady. He thought maybe she was not as careless and silly as she liked to pretend.

She waved at him when she left.

The rest of the day was taken up by thinking of Molly, planning what he wanted to do. He didn’t know if Molly would like being told what to do, but thought it was worth trying. Nothing too complicated, he thought, simple but good. Give Molly a good time, and take nothing for himself. He had the feeling, after last night’s confused confession, that Molly hadn’t had much of that kind of thing.

He looked forward to giving it.

When he arrived at Molly’s Yasha opened the door. She rolled her eyes and let him in.

“He’s in his room,” she said, and stalked off, presumably for another date with her earplugs.

He knocked on the door, got a sing-song “come iiin-” and walked in.

Only to see Molly, already naked, doing his best at posed and sensual with one arm a bulky weight of bandaging.

“Just to make sure we’re completely clear,” Molly said.”I liked that kissing and cuddling thing last night, but I really want to have sex tonight.”

Caleb swallowed. “That’s the plan,” he said, a little distantly. His dick wanted him to forget his own plans and just get straight to it. He would have to resist.

Molly looked stunning. His dick was still soft, resting against one well-muscled thigh. His tattoos glowed against his skin, wild roses and violets and other flowers on his unbroken arm. The scars across his chest, pale against the warm brown of his skin. The beautiful lines of his hipbones, his ribcage, his collarbones - all things that Caleb wanted to kiss and lick and bite.

“You just going to stand there and stare?” Molly said.

Caleb shook his head. “Before we start, I want - I want to suggest something.”

Molly licked his lips. “Go ahead.”

“I want you to just - I want you to do as I say. I want you to lie there with your good hand over your head, and take what I give you.”

Molly’s eyes were huge and dark. His nipples were hard little brown points against his bare chest. 

“Sounds good to me,” he said. “Let’s get on with it.”

Caleb put a hand up in the air. “First,” he said. “If you don’t like anything I do, or you want me to stop, say Red. Orange if you want to slow down.”

“And is green for keep going? I know what traffic lights were, Caleb, please.”

“Molly, this is serious. I don’t want to hurt you, or make you frightened. I want you to have a good time.”

Molly smiled, and it was wonderful. “Darling,” he said. “I can’t imagine you and me in bed together ending in a bad time. But I understood, ok? I want you to enact your wicked plan. Please.”

Caleb smiled to himself. “Brat,” he said, affectionately. “You’ll get what I give you, did you miss that part?”

Molly laughed, soft and breathless. “I’m hoping what you give me is good.”

His dick was hard now, and twitching against his belly. Very pretty, very tempting. Caleb had other goals in mind, first.

“Lie still,” he told Molly. “If you move, I stop, and I don’t start again until you stop moving.”

Molly’s arm was above him. His eyes were wide. Caleb crawled so he was straddling Molly’s hips, and bent down for a hot, hard kiss, thrusting his tongue into Molly’s mouth. Molly moaned around it, and grinned up at him when the kiss was done. Caleb ran his thumb over Molly’s beautiful, curving mouth and slipped his thumb past his lips. Molly knew what was what; he sucked the thumb into his mouth and let the pierced tip of his tongue trace it. He kept his eyes on Caleb’s the whole time.

“You like to tease,” Caleb said. “See how you like being teased.”

He pressed his open mouth to Molly’s lovely neck, sucked and bit down, which made Molly gasp aloud. Right now he was playing along with orders very well. Caleb planned to make it a bit trickier soon enough. 

He moved down, mouthing along Molly’s collarbone. The scars across it felt interesting under his tongue and he stayed there, mapping their texture and taste to his satisfaction. Molly whined, and rolled his hips.

So Caleb stopped. Lifted his mouth from Molly’s skin, took his hands off Molly’s body.

“Lie still,” he said, in response to a confused noise from Molly.

“You utter -” Molly said. Caleb smiled down, ignored the heavy ache of his cock behind his fly. 

“Lie still.”

Molly stopped moving. He had a delightful sulky expression that Caleb would enjoy wrecking.

Caleb returned to his task. He catalogued Molly’s sounds, the textures of his body under lips and tongue. His nipples in Caleb’s mouth were wonderful, and the high-pitched gasp Molly made even better. The damp gleaming of Caleb’s saliva over Molly’s skin was a work of art in itself.

He moved down, over Molly’s soft and tender stomach, down the where Molly’s dick was waiting, hard and flushed and drooling for Caleb. A tiny pool of precum collected under the head. Caleb ran a finger through it and sucked it into his mouth.

“Fuck, Caleb,” Molly said, gravel-voiced and awed. Caleb grinned at him, feeling free to just be, to just do what felt right and natural. Amazed that this beautiful man would let Caleb touch him.

He bent his head again, but to Molly’s hipbones, nibbling along the delicate skin. Molly moaned. 

“Caleb, please,” he said. “Please touch me.”

“You’ll get what I give you. If you’re still alright with that?” 

“Yes, yes,” Molly said. “Fuck yes, or green, or whatever you want to hear!”

Caleb smiled against Molly’s skin, moved even further down, to worship Molly’s amazing thighs with his mouth and tongue. He loved these thighs, the good, strong muscle, the thick dark hair. He avoided the still sore-looking wounds, kissed his way around.

Time to adjust.

“Spread your legs for me, Mollymauk,” he said. 

“Oh, fuck, yeah,” Molly said. His dick twitched. Caleb got off Molly long enough for Molly to draw his knees up and let them fall apart, letting Caleb see almost everything - Molly’s cock, his balls already drawing tight to his body, the protected skin of his inner thighs, the faintest hint of his arse crease, which gave Caleb ideas for another time, another evening. Not tonight; but Caleb really wanted to fuck Molly. It had been a while since he’d done anything like that, but he thought it would probably be amazing to be inside Molly’s body, making him moan and writhe. When the time was right, it would be right.

Right now, he wanted to concentrate on this. Molly was open-mouthed and achingly hard, legs spread, every inch of him hungry and desperate and wanting. He ran his hands up the insides of those thighs, then his tongue up each one in turn. Molly twitched under him. Close enough.

“You seem to be having trouble with staying still, Mollymauk,” he said. “Maybe I should tie you down.”

Molly closed his eyes, groaned, and his head fell back hard. Apparently he liked that idea. The thought of Molly tied down, at Caleb’s mercy was - very good. But not part of tonight, he had nothing to do it with. Instead he settled down between Molly’s legs and - gently, very gently - sucked one of Molly’s balls into his mouth. 

He liked the weight of it in its mouth, how gentle he had to be, but most of all he loved the high pitched whine that Molly made, the word-jumble gabbling that came spilling out of his mouth. Caleb ached, he burned, he wanted to come - but that’s not what this was about. He could sacrifice one orgasm for this. Besides, this memory would be with him forever, he’d have no problem getting off to it on his own later.

Finally, finally, Caleb was ready to get his mouth on Molly’s dick. Beautiful thing. He was so hard now it looked like it might hurt, his cock liberally dribbling precum from the dark red head. He snuck a glance up to Molly’s face, saw him, eyes closed tight, biting his lip hard enough to bleed. 

Caleb stuck out a delicate tongue tip and lapped up a drop of precome. Molly’s thighs were tense, almost shaking with the effort required not to move.

“Good boy,” he said and Molly gasped.

“Caleb,” he said, and sounded broken open. “Please.”

“Please what?”

“My dick, Caleb, please! Suck my dick!”

He traced his tongue around the head, lapping up the salt-bitter precum, flicked it against the frenulum. “In my own time,” he said, as Molly let out a groan like a sob.

“Colour, Mollymauk,” Caleb said.

“Green, green, green, fuck.” Molly’s chest was heaving, but his arm was still above his head.

To reward him, Caleb licked a broad stripe up his dick, balls to tip. Molly shouted, his hips twitched - but he stopped himself from jerking them up. 

“Such a good boy,” Caleb said. “Staying nice and still.”

He pressed tiny, featherlight kisses over every millimetre of Molly’s cock, liking the weight of it in his hand, the smell (musky-sharp) up close. The way Molly’s dick jerked and twitched and drooled in his hand was a delight. He hadn’t got to indulge in this kind of slow exploration for a long time, and Molly was wonderful, responsive and genuine and perfect in every way.

Molly’s groans sounded wrecked, torn from his throat.

“No-one -” he said. “Never, never, no-one’s ever - ah - fuck - taken so much time, shit, Caleb, fuck, please.”

Ignoring him, Caleb moved from closed mouth kisses, to open mouth ones. Almost what Molly wanted, but not quite, and he whined and begged and it was sweet to hear him so desperate, to have his cock so hot and thick and hard against his mouth.

Molly was so worked up now that it was taking actual effort not to get him off, to avoid anything that would cause orgasm. As soon as Caleb swallowed Molly’s cock he was likely to come, right then and there. That was perfect, but if Caleb could draw it out a little longer, he would.

He moved to soft licks, enough to tease but not enough for Molly to reach completion. The noise Molly made at that was inhuman, all his muscles at high tension. His breath started coming out in punched-out little gasps, interspersed with ‘please’, ‘god’, ‘fuck’, and a slurred attempt at Caleb’s name. Caleb’s own cock was throbbing in time with his heartbeat. This was even better than he’d pictured it.

He thought it might at least be time to take pity on Molly. Slowly, carefully, he moved and kissed the head of Molly’s dick. Molly swore, all slurred and rough, and in one go Caleb swallowed it down to the root, feeling it pulse in his mouth and throat. Tasting it, all musk and salt and a mineral-like bitterness.

Molly lasted a little longer than Caleb had guessed, but not long at all after that. All Caleb had to do was hollow his cheeks and swallow around Molly’s dick and Molly was coming with a cracked groan and his thighs twitching under Caleb’s hands.

Caleb had never been the biggest fan of the taste of semen, but what it meant now was amazing, and he swallowed it without gagging. He lay next to Molly to kiss him, knowing Molly was tasting himself in Caleb’s mouth.

Molly’s eyes were hazed and dizzy, he was boneless and immovable on the bed. Sweet and doe-eyed and completely destroyed. Caleb was proud of what he had managed here. His own hardness didn’t matter at all.

Molly didn’t seem to agree. He fumbled towards Calebs fly with shaking hands.

“Want - fuck, you didn’t even -” he managed.

Caleb put a hand on Molly’s. “I don’t want to,” he said, gently. “I’ve done what I wanted.”

“But -” Molly’s voice was small, confused, in the same way that had worried and hurt Caleb last night. “I didn’t make you come.”

Caleb put his fingers under Molly’s chin, tilted his face up to make eye contact. “And you don’t have to, right now. I’m not here just for that. I’m here for you.”

“Oh,” Molly said. He was frowning. It hadn’t settled yet, and might not for a long time, if ever. But he had the idea that Molly had wrapped his worth up in what he could do for others, and would let others tear him apart to keep them happy with him, and Caleb didn’t want Molly to do that with him.

“You’re more than your ability to make someone orgasm,” Caleb risked. And knew instantly it might have been the wrong thing to say. Because Molly’s face closed off and he put his fake smile on.

“Oh, so someone’s told you what a huge slut I am. And what, you thought -”

“I thought nothing. I don’t care how many people you’ve fucked.”

“What if I told you it was a thousand? A thousand people,” Molly turned his head away.

“I would be impressed, honestly. That would take some going.”

Molly laughed, bitter. “Fucked every adult I remember meeting and all the ones I don’t, no doubt.”

“Mollymauk -”

“What, did you think you were special? Everyone knows I’ll let anyone have me. Just ask, and there’ll be someone to tell you all about how terrible I am. Fuck knows in this world where people murder each other over nothing at all that sleeping around is the worst thing a person can do.”

That stung, even though Caleb knew it was true. He wasn’t special. Anyone who had told him he was had been lying to control him.

“No-one worth anything would talk about you like that,” Caleb said. “I did not mean it the way it came out. I am bad at this.”

Molly was silent. “What did you mean to say?” he said, eventually. 

“I meant - I meant that I like you. I mean that I will like you, whether or not you make me come.”

Another silence. In it Caleb heard Molly breathe, slowly and steadily. Controlled. Too controlled. 

“Ok,” Molly said. Caleb didn’t think he meant it. Not yet. “It’s not a thousand, by the way.”

“I don’t care if it is or not.”

“It’s ten thousand,” Molly said, and his voice was sly and light, and he was looking at Caleb again with his eyes creased up and a shit-eating grin, and Caleb smiled back.

“Sorry,” Molly said. “I shouldn’t have been mean. That wasn’t ok.”

Caleb wrapped some of Molly’s curls around his finger, ran his thumb across them, over and over.

“Thank you,” he said at last. “You are forgiven.” 

Molly sighed. “I’m like that sometimes. I don’t want to be. I try not to be. But I am.”

Caleb pressed a kiss to Molly’s hair and said nothing. He understood all too well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully by now it is very apparent that Molly has borderline personality disorder. I have it too, and am writing it as I experience it - by no means is this supposed to be how ALL borderlines are or act.
> 
> Also, I wrestled with the laptop for seven hours to get this up so if you are normally too shy to comment I could really do with hearing it. All comments are loved and appreciated, and they feed the inspiration gremlin in my brain.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> haha did you think anyone could get out of a APOCALYPSE without damage?? you were wrong
> 
> OR
> 
> two mentally ill people try to figure out how to relate to each other over several thousand words

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> art by kesterite!

Molly was woken by screaming, by screaming and a sharp pain on his cheek. He scrambled awake and out of bed, heart pounding, breath fast. His little solar powered light bathed his bed in soft pink, and in his bed, tangled in blankets, was Caleb. He was thrashing, breathing hard, screaming and whimpering in his sleep.

Molly pressed his shaking hand to the sore spot on his cheek. Of course. That was what had happened.

He was Mollymauk Tealeaf. He was not alone. It was not dark. He was alive. This was real.

And fuck, Caleb was hurting. Caleb was afraid.

Molly approached cautiously. He didn’t want one of Caleb’s flailing arms to catch him again.

“Caleb,” he said, “Caleb darling.”

Caleb couldn’t hear him; the nightmare had too fierce a grip. Molly sat, near his kicking legs. The reek of fear sweat was thick and sour. Molly placed a gentle hand on one leg

“Caleb,” he said again, and squeezed the leg. Would it be ok to wake him up? Should he let Caleb come out of it on his own? He didn’t like that idea, didn’t like the idea of leaving Caleb to suffer when Molly could do something about it.

Caleb didn’t wake. He was muttering in german, and - and sobbing, crying and no. Molly wasn’t having this. It didn’t matter if Caleb hit him again, it wasn’t like it was on purpose and besides, Molly was used to pain.

His bandaged arm made maneuvering hard, and unsurprisingly Caleb caught him around the side of the head as Molly moved. But then Molly was close in, his good hand patting Caleb’s face, saying his name over and over.

Finally, Caleb jerked awake with a terrified gasp. His eyes were wild and panicked and he flailed, pushing Molly away.

“It’s ok, it’s alright. It’s me, Molly.”

A pause. Then, “Molly.”

“That’s right. Your name is Caleb. You’re in New Refuge, in my bed. You like books and fresh bread and summer rain and you’re safe.”

“My - my name is Caleb. Caleb Widogast.” Caleb said. “I - I was having a nightmare?”

“Yeah, “ Molly said, and rubbed his cheek. “I think so.”

Caleb tracked the movement of Molly’s hand.

“Mein gott,” he said. “I hurt you.” His voice was shaking.

“It’s not like you did it on purpose,” Molly said. “I’m just glad I could wake you up.”

“I _hurt_ you,” Caleb said. “This - this is why I never should have stayed. One good night and I thought - I hurt you and I -” he slipped into German then, and it didn’t sound like he was being kind to himself. His voice dripped with self hate and loathing.

“Caleb, no,” Molly said, and reached for him.

Caleb batted Molly’s hands away.

“No,” he said. He was breathing very fast now. “No. I should not - I cannot - I must leave.”

“Stay,” Molly said. “It’s alright. Stay.”

“Stay? So I can hurt you again? No! I will not - I am like this nearly every night, you understand? Nearly - I never hit Nott but I have hit you - I am - I am disgusting, I will not stay I cannot stay I -”

He detangled himself from the blankets and landed on the floor, shaking. He was panicking, teary. But he was saying no. Molly wouldn’t force anything on him.

“Caleb,” Molly said. “At least look at me. I’m alright. It won’t even bruise.”

Caleb looked at the floor. “And what about next time?” he said, through his gulping breaths. “I will not be this selfish again, Molly, you have my word.”

“Selfish, to stay when I want you to? Caleb, please, I don’t care, I don’t.”

Caleb just shook his head, dragged himself to his feet and stumbled out of Molly’s room. Molly paused only to pull on his jogging bottoms and followed.

He was barefoot, the ground cool and gritty under him, and Caleb had left his boots in Molly’s room and might hurt himself, and was in a state and shouldn’t be left alone

The world was hushed, only the distant calls of an owl to break up the sound of his feet hitting the ground and his breath in his ears.

He headed for the little place Nott and Caleb had been given when they arrived and finally saw Caleb ahead of him in the gloom, walking like he was drunk or concussed.

“Caleb!”

Caleb turned. Molly couldn’t see his face but could see the way his shoulders hunched and he curled up on himself.

“Caleb, please listen to me.”

Caleb turned around and ran to his house. He stopped at the door and seemed to stare at it.

Molly caught up. Caleb was stuck in his panic breathing, hitching gasps and gulps of air ripping through his chest.

“Caleb,” Molly said. “Caleb Widogast. Listen to me.”

Molly knew what panic like that did to the mind and heart and soul, knew how it painted everything in the worst possible colours. How it took all your thoughts from you and made them sick and poisoned. How you might, possibly, do some very stupid things to yourself while lost in it.

Molly had, and sometimes he could still feel it there, waiting for him.

“I can’t be near you,” Caleb said. “I’m just going to hurt you.”

“Caleb, you’re so scared of hurting me that you ran barefoot out of my house.”

Caleb looked at him. His eyes were huge dark shadows in the moonlight. He was twisting his hands in front of him. 

“Why are you so insistent on hating yourself for something you had no control over? You were having a nightmare. Would you hate me if I trod on your foot?”

“Could never hate you,” Caleb gasped out.

“Please breathe,” Molly said, and stepped closer. “In for three, out for five.” Jester had taught him that, in his early days, when the darkness seemed to be close and hot and breathless around him everywhere he looked.

Caleb breathed. Bit by bit, he calmed. Molly stayed arms reach away.

“There we go,” Molly said, when he was breathing normally. “There we go.”

He slid down against his door and buried his face in his hands.

“I am sorry,” he said. “Sorry for that whole display. What must you think of me?”

“That’s Caleb Widogast, he’s a librarian, he’s got a very dry sense of humour, he loves kittens and wow, he can suck your brains out through your dick,” Molly said.

Caleb laughed, a startled uncertain sound. Shaky and fragile. “I meant it, Mollymauk, I cannot sleep next to you if I am a risk to you. What if it’s worse? What if I -”

“None of that,” Molly said, firmly, and sat next to Caleb. “I’ve had those too, you know. Nightmares, violent ones. And panic attacks, like that. Had them all. I still do, sometimes, not often, but they happen. And sometimes I get scared or hurt and I get mean because of it, like I did earlier tonight.”

“That - it is different,” Caleb said.

“No, it’s not. You aren’t uniquely broken and awful. You’re just fucked up. Big news, we’re all fucked up here. We’ve all seen terrible things. We’ve all done terrible things, probably, or we wouldn’t be alive to be here now. Thing is, here? What matters is what we do now. You didn’t hurt me on purpose and you said sorry so as the person directly involved I absolve you. And if you don’t want to sleep in me bed again, that fine, so long as you aren’t doing it to punish yourself.”

Molly took a breath. “Anyway, that’s what I think, but you probably shouldn’t listen to me because I’m an idiot.”

“You are not any such thing.”

Molly waved his broken arm about. “Clearly, I am.”

Caleb looked up into the sky. He murmured some things under his breath that Molly didn’t understand.

“Thank you,” he said. “If I tell you I am going in now, to sleep, and not to punish myself, will you let me?”

“Yes,” Molly said. “And as for sleeping with me - actual sleeping, not what we’ve been doing - we’ll handle it time by time, ok?”

“Ok.” Caleb sounded tired and flat, but no longer in any kind of danger. Molly got up to give him room to open the door. Before he went in, Molly put a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey,” Molly said. “You aren’t disgusting.”

Caleb bowed his head. “You might want to reserve judgement on that.” 

Molly suddenly wanted to tell him every little thing. Lay it all out, everything he remembered and everything he didn’t and all the things in between, the half-shapes of memory that horrified and left, only ghosts of whatever it was his hands had once done.

Wanted only this, to say - there is blood on my hands too and every pair here, the world is drenched in it, but if we drown in the blood we’ve spilled what was the point in living through it. 

Instead, he bit his lip. He didn’t know how to word it, how to make it welcome and believed and how to sink it into Caleb’s heart.

One day. One day, maybe soon.

He let Caleb go in and go to bed, and Molly himself back to bed, only he couldn’t sleep.His mind was full of the things he’d seen, the things he tried not to care about as already done and not within his power to change. Skeletons curled up together in bed, a small one or two or three between them. Newer dead were harder, people who had tried and tried and bad luck or sickness or someone else had taken life from them. 

Unwelcome, a skulking thing in his skull, the first time Molly remembered killing someone. Someone who had been trying to kill him, he didn’t know why only - they were alone, weren’t they? He’d investigated later and found a little nest, food and water and pictures of a family between the pages of a children’s book, and it had been such a long time. They’d not been strong, almost skeletal, and barely human any more. And his knife had gone in so easy, and their blood had been hot, and then cold. It had barely been any effort at all and that seemed wrong, it should have been more effort to kill them. He’d been sick, afterwards, and he felt sick now too, hot and prickly all over, one eye closing on its own.

They must have been so scared. But he had been scared, too.

Molly knew they all had similar stories, worse or better, they all had them. You could do your best, but in the world as it was, someone or something would force you to be a monster to live through it. You just didn’t have to stay there, if you didn’t want to. You could come back.

There was always a way back.

Eventually he at least drifted into a doze, restless and unpleasant.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Silly Caleb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ART BY KESTERITE!

Caleb didn’t know what to do. Avoiding Molly was cruel. He didn’t want to stop seeing Molly, to stop their - friendship? Fling? - whatever it was. He felt like he should, but could no longer be sure what part of him was making those demands. He thought it was the part of him that liked suffering, that chose it over the harder work of compassion.

But it was easier. Oh, it was easier than remembering Molly rubbing at his face where Caleb had hit him in his terror. There was the fear, the awful fear, that Molly might ask him what the nightmares were about. He could never - he couldn’t bear the idea of speaking of it. His tongue would drop out of his mouth.

His body, though, was a traitor. He would promise himself - no Molly.Go at a different time to eat, speak to other people. Not speak at all. But when the day crawled to a close he would find his way to Molly’s little home, find himself in Molly’s room. Not every night, but more nights than he didn’t He never slept over again. It was for Molly. For Molly’s sake.

So he continued. Molly was true to his word. Staying over was never expected. If Caleb wanted to stay, he could. If he didn’t, he could leave. It seemed too easy, too simple, and he felt - he thought as though Molly was keeping something back.

If, in his way, he’d been attempting to prove to Molly that masks were unneeded around Caleb, he’d failed. Molly had closed shut.

He couldn’t even remember the nightmare that had caused it. 

And now he was too afraid to push again, too afraid to break what was one of the few beautiful things he’d had in nearly twenty years.

It carried on like that. Molly read the books that Caleb had brought him, returned them, and took out some more that Caleb suggested. Molly flirted. Molly had sex with Caleb. Three weeks in, Yasha left to map the new coastline and Caleb caught her and Molly, standing at the gate. Molly hugged her so tight, his slim form lost in her height and bulk. Yasha kissed Molly on the forehead, and Caleb felt like a voyeur. He ached. He had liked the simple affection that Molly had shown him and he had ruined it. Pushed too far, too fast, then panicked in the night and done everything wrong.

He wanted Molly to kiss him, in public, soft and full of feeling. He had done that, sometimes, and hadn’t done since Caleb’s nightmare. Caleb didn’t know how to ask for it back. 

He was lucky to have what he did. He was lucky, lucky. He liked Molly, as a man, as a friend. Molly was kind. 

That night, he went over to Molly’s. He couldn’t help himself, couldn’t stop his feet from walking that way, couldn’t stop his body from wanting Molly near him, touching him. Having Molly in whatever capacity he’d allow. 

Molly was sprawled across the sofa in the tiny living room. He was reading one of the books Caleb had suggested. The bandages on his broken arm had become dingy over the weeks. 

Molly lifted his head and smiled at Caleb. He looked tired, Molly did, smile tight and eyes shadowed. Caleb hadn’t been here last night, not at all. Maybe Molly hadn’t slept well. Caleb felt awkward and unsure, like he hadn’t since the first week of knowing Molly. Something was wrong, and he didn’t know what it was or how to fix it.

“Mollymauk,” he said. 

Molly put the book down. “Guess we’ll head to the bedroom,” he said.

Yes, Caleb’s body said. “No,” Caleb said. “Can I sit?”

Molly shrugged. “Sure.” With a soft grunt of effort, he moved his legs, cleared space for Caleb.

Caleb sat. He stared down at his feet, at his awful boots with the holes in, at the shabby torn hems of his trousers around his ankles. Looking at Molly right now would blind him. He was sure of it.

Molly was warm, they were close together and Caleb could feel the warmth of him. He smelled good, clean. He had washed today. Washed his hair, too, Caleb could smell the shampoo. He was breathing, soft. Caleb didn’t know what to say.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“You’re always sorry and you’ve never done anything to apologise for,” Molly said. “It’s a bit tiring, to be honest.” 

Oh. That made sense. Of course Molly would tire of him, he had always known it. And of course Molly was too kind to tell him to leave. He had probably been waiting for Caleb to catch the hint for weeks.

“If you are tiring of me, that is alright,” he said. “We needn’t continue.”

Molly sucked in a sharp breath of air and drummed his fingers on the arm of the sofa. He let out a bitter kind of laugh.

“That’s not even close to what I said. Do you want to stop this? You’re the one who’s -”

“I don’t,” Caleb said. “I want -”

“Then why do you act like you don’t even fucking want to look at me any more?” Molly wouldn’t look at him, that was the problem, that Molly was looking fractiously towards the front door, biting his lip hard.

What? That wasn’t -

“I’m a good lay,” Molly said, “But I’m far from the only option here. If you don’t - if you don’t want to any more, it’s alright.” He swallowed. Caleb watched his throat move. “I know what I am. I know what this was. It’s alright.”

It didn’t sound like it would be alright.

Caleb shook his head. He didn’t know what he wanted but it wasn’t that.

He thought about the last few weeks. He had the nightmare, and had hurt Molly during it. Then he had tried to give Molly some space, assuming he’d need it. He had visited Molly less, rarely stayed over, stopped seeking Molly out in the public places and - oh.

Oh. From Molly’s point of view that had probably - oh. 

He laughed. “I was trying to - to not pressure you after my nightmare. I thought - you would not want me near you.”

“Fuck,” Molly said. “I thought you’d - I don’t know, decided I wasn’t worth the effort? I was trying to - “

“We are both so stupid,” Caleb said.

“Fucking idiots.”

“I fucked up,” Caleb said.

“We fucked up. We’re friends. Aren’t we?”

Caleb reached out with a hand, patted Molly’s knee. His heart was warm and full. “We are friends,” he confirmed. “Friends who are having sex.”

“In future, perhaps we should… explain ourselves? Talk to each other? Radical idea, I know-” Molly was smiling. It was the real smile, the one Caleb liked.

“It will never catch on,” Caleb said. “I am glad you aren’t tired of me.”

“Same,” Molly said. “Hey, could we do that kissing and cuddling thing you’re so keen on? Turns out I like it. Turns out I missed it.”

Caleb smiled. “All you have to do is ask. Any time, Molly.” Molly’s smile was a delighted thing, all soft and surprised.

Molly shuffled up to his knees and leaned in until their lips were almost touching, then kissed him, mouth closed, sweet and soft. Caleb twined a hand through Molly’s hair, enjoying all the different textures, and opened his mouth.

They ended up tangled together on the sofa, kissing and kissing, hands in hair and on faces, no urge to take it further. Just that, just that, lips on lips, the soft slide of tongues, Molly’s hair and warm skin under Caleb’s hands, his heart a song. 

They slowed, became less desperate, and Molly rested his head on Caleb’s chest, twisted a finger in his hair. 

“I can hear your heart beat,” he said, voice slurred and drowsy. “It’s nice.”

It felt so right. Caleb stroked Molly’s good arm, and then the bandages on the broken one, before returning to stroking his hair.

Molly murmured something under his breath. He was soft and pliant and half-asleep and Caleb wanted to stay forever, no matter that he would hurt terribly for it in the morning. But Molly would hurt too, if he slept like this, and that could not be allowed.

“Mollymauk,” he said, “Molly,” softly into Molly’s ear. Molly mumbled something incomprehensible. “Molly, you must go to sleep in a real bed.” Molly groaned and pressed his face tighter into Caleb’s chest. 

Caleb laughed, and kissed Molly on the top of his head. “I will not be responsible for your backache in the morning,” he said.

The only response was another grumble before Molly lifted his head. He shouldn’t have looked so beautiful, not with lines from Caleb’s shirt printed across his cheek and forehead. But his green eyes were soft and his lips were open and oh, oh, but Caleb could look at him for hours at a time and never get bored.

“You’re right,” Molly said. “I know you are but I don’t want you to be.”

With a lot of shuffling and grumbling and one accidental collision of bandaged arm to soft Caleb stomach, Molly wriggled off Caleb’s body.

“Bed,” he said, tired and foggy. “Staying?”

Caleb breathed deep. He wanted to. He did. 

“Yes,” he said.

And from there, it was easier. Better. He stayed sometimes now. Not all the time. He wasn’t so afraid. Nightmares came, and he woke up with Molly a distance away from him, and Molly calmed him. In his days, he fed Frumpkin, who was getting big and strong and started following him to the library. He ate well, and gained weight. He kissed Molly behind closed doors and admired his body, and this was as good as it had ever been for him, and it was better than he would ever deserve.

Of course, this was Caleb. He ruined everything. Of course he would ruin this, it was inevitable. And it all went horrible on the day Molly finally had his arm freed.

“I cannot wait,” Molly said. “I am so sick of this thing being in my way.”

Caleb looked up from his book and smiled. They were in the library. Jester was busy, and Molly had to wait. Frumpkin was curled up in a sunbeam, snoring softly.

“And when it’s gone, maybe I can start getting out there again. Not that I haven’t loved spending time with you, darling, but I’ve started to get - claustrophobic.”

“My only request is you be more cautious, Mollymauk.”

Molly rolled his eyes and stuck his tongue out. “I’ll have you know I don’t normally break limbs.”

“Hmm,” Caleb said, and went back to his book.

“I don’t! Molly said. “As far as I know, that’s the first time I ever broke anything. Except hearts, of course.” 

“No doubt there are people all over Norfolk languishing in unrequited love for you,” Caleb said, deadpan. “Their concerns for food and water and survival secondary to their memories of the man they can never have.”

“You’ve been talking to Jester too much.” Molly’s voice was light and he sounded on the edge of laugher. Caleb risked a glance to him, to see his hair - already dark at the roots again - gleaming in the light, the curve of his mouth, the light in his eyes.

Caleb’s heart felt full and fluttery. His own mouth twitched into a smile in response to Molly.

“Molly?” Jester called. “Come on now,”

“Yes! Finally, Jester, you are my favourite and I adore you.”

Molly practically skipped after Jester, and Caleb watched after him for a little while. When he was gone, everything seemed just a little flatter, like being around Molly made everything a tiny bit more wonderful.

His book wasn’t quite as absorbing as it had been. It wouldn’t be long, though, before he was here. There were worries, of course - the bone could have healed poorly, or crooked - but in a wonderful break from the ordinary his brain considered these things and did not cycle on them until they drove him to panic.

He was waiting what felt like a long time, too long, and he was just putting his back down and getting ready to check in when the interior lights of the library flickered on. Off again, then on, and this time they stayed on.

He heard a cheer outside.

Well, it was quiet. Not so terrible to find out what was happening.

He poked his noise out of the library and wandered across to the group of people.

“Caleb,” Fjord called. “I got the electricity stable for the library!”

“Good work!” he said back. 

His eyes were caught by a familiar mass of purple curls. And then a familiar naked back.

He’d seen it before, of course, Molly’s back. The tattoo there of the skull and the flowers wreathing and twining around it. Rarely in broad daylight though. Molly was standing there, talking to Jester, both arms gesturing emphatically. No bandages, no damage. His tattoos were vivid against brown skin. Caleb had touched every single one of his scars with lips and tongue. Sweat droplets collected in the small of his back and Caleb couldn’t tear his eyes away.

And then, somehow, some magical way, there was music. He started, turned, saw an ancient CD player hooked up. Molly cocked his head and laughed, free and unashamed up into the sky. Then he started to dance. It was not astonishingly skilled, but it was lovely all the same. He moved a lot with his hips and arms, full of the joy of living. He was the most wonderful man in the world, the most beautiful man Caleb had ever seen, the sun gold on his skin.

Caleb moved towards him like he was being pulled. Molly saw him. 

“Caleb,” he said. “Dance?”

Caleb looked into Molly’s face, his eyes, and knew in an instant that he was in love.

Molly held out his hands.. He was in love with Molly. No. Oh no, he shouldn’t have let this happen. Touching Molly now would be wonderful and terrible.

His breath seized up in his chest.

“Too - too many people,” he lied, with a sick smile. Molly’s own smile dropped a little but he was kind, so kind, and his voice was soft and gentle.

“Of course,” he said. 

And Caleb turned and fled, headed round the back of the library where poppies grew through the cracks in the old carpark and went to his hands and knees and he oh no, oh no, he was in love in love and the last time had been so dreadful, and all he could do was poison that wonderful man and he should never have allowed himself this and Molly could never, would never love him back and he was weak, so weak that it wouldn’t stop him. Caleb would love him and love him and break himself apart on Molly and would break Molly and would ruin would ruin - he he he no - no no no no.

He threw up onto the ground. And again. And again, until he was retching with nothing coming up and his throat burned and his mouth tasted of acid. The concrete was gritty under his hand. His knees hurt. 

He knew he was too weak to do what he ought. He wouldn’t stop sleeping with Molly, nor would he leave New Refuge. On top of everything else he was a coward.

A fool and a coward and a murderer, and he dared to touch Molly with his bloodstained hands.

He snuck his shaking fingers through the buttons of the shirt, the feel the scarred wreck of his chest, going for one, specific scar, the most hated one, over his heart. 

He stayed kneeling there, digging his nails hard into scar tissue, for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Caleb: tries to persuade Molly his worth doesn't need to be tied up in sex  
> Caleb: manages to reinforce this idea with his behaviour post-freakout.
> 
> Oh, hey, as a note lovely readers: A combination of things means I'm unlikely to be able to update thursday. Sorry about that, normal schedule resumes next week. I'm also not gonna be able to respond to comments or correct any typos!


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sorry?

Apparently Molly was still not to leave New Refuge. Orna’s orders. He found out at the gates. He hadn’t been planning on going anywhere yet, he still felt weak and nervous, but on a nice long walk to strengthen his legs after all those weeks of forced laziness.

But, nope. The guard on duty had told him with a regretful smile he wasn’t to be allowed out.

Like he was a kid. Like it was back to his early days. Like he couldn’t be trusted..

Fuck, he loved Orna and Gustav, but sometimes -

So, he wound up draped over the sofas in the common room, complaining. There were layers to his annoyance, and it was completely reasonable, which is why it was terrible that the only person to talk to was Beau.

“Fuck,” he said, staring up at the ceiling. “They weren’t this bad about it when that man stabbed me. And that was a lot worse than this.”

“Everyone’s been stabbed,” Beau said. “Not everyone’s ignored their specific orders and got themselves hurt.”

“Like you don’t disobey orders almost on fucking reflex!”

“Dude, I don’t fucking care,” Beau said. “So you get to sit on your arse and do nothing til they calm down. Sounds pretty sweet to me.”

Molly glared up at the ceiling. It remained uncaring. “What’s the point of keeping me around if they won’t let me do one of the two things I’m actually good at?” It came out sounding far more bitter and honest than he meant it to.

There was an awkward silence. Beau didn’t do too well with feelings. Any of them.

“What’s the other one?” Beau asked.

Molly looked at her with a grin, formed the fingers of one hand into a circle and thrust his index finger through it a few times. To really ram it home (ha) he waggled his eyebrows.

“Oh, god, no. I do not ever want to imagine your dick, ever again, in my life. Please die.”

“Won’t. I refuse. Gonna live forever. Unless I die of boredom from being kept here like a misbehaving child -”

“You are one.”

“A misbehaving child. And on top of all this, Caleb’s being all weird again and - shit.”

Beau looked at him, her eyebrows right up in her hairline.

“You know, “ she said. “I thought you asking him to dance was a bit much, even for you.”

“Nothing - I like him. We’re friends.” Molly fixed his gaze on a frayed patch in the sofa arm. Someone who was good with this stuff should probably fix it soon.

“Man, I don’t care,” Beau lied. “I don’t give a shit who you’re screwing, you know that.”

Molly let the pause after that stretch out for a bit.

“Does that mean you aren’t going to tell anyone? I didn’t mean to let it slip like that. Lot on my mind.”

“I’m a lot of things, but I can keep a secret. I’d hate to embarrass our nice librarian by revealing he chooses to spend his time with you.”

Molly gave her a grateful smile and returned his gaze to the ceiling. Caleb’s weirdness after the library had got power had been bothering him. Not a lot, but it was there, niggling. He hadn’t been pulling away, like he had before, but there was a new desperation in him, and Molly had caught a glimpse or two of the thick rotting stream of self-hate that poisoned him. That wasn’t new, or a surprise, but there was a new element to it that Molly couldn’t see properly.

Last night had been odd. Caleb had come round. Not for sex, but just to hold him in his bed, Molly faced away and Caleb murmuring in German into his hair. And Caleb had sounded on the edge of tears. Molly liked bringing people to tears, but he preferred laughter, or joy, or overwhelmed pleasure.

Molly had asked, because they did that now, they talked, they had promised, but Caleb had said - what was it. No, he was not alright, but it was nothing Molly could fix, and it could be handled with time.

Frustrating. He wanted to fix it. He would give anything to have Caleb happy and content with all that vicious self-hate long forgotten. He knew he couldn’t, but it didn’t stop him wanting it.

“Dude, you’re moping,”

“Am not,” he said, reflexively. “I’m thinking.”

Beau snorted. “With what?”

Without looking, Molly put his middle finger up in her direction.

“About when Yasha will get back,” he said, to deflect her. “Should be any day now.”

“Y-yeah?” Oh bless her and her predictability. “That’d be cool. To have the new coast maps.”

“Why would that be cool? You guard, you don’t _leave_ , that’s scavver shit.”

Beau stammered. Adorable. “I like knowing things, that’s all! Man, I wonder if Yarmouth is still there. I went there on a school trip once. Place was a tacky shithole and I ate my body-weight in sugar.”

“Sounds like I’d have loved it.”

“Never came to Norfolk before, you know, everything?”

“Not that I remember,” he said. It slipped off his tongue easy, just like it always did. And it was the truth, just in a weird, canted angle. His heart rate barely sped up any more.

“Where were you from? Accent’s sorta irish, but not very,” she said.

“Does it matter? I’m here now. Where were you from?”

Beau laughed. “Birmingham mate. What, you couldn’t tell?”

Molly waved her off. “Let’s talk about something less boring,” he said. “Let’s talk about punching people or something. I heard you and Jester wrestled for - fun?”

“She’s strong for a doctor or whatever,” Beau said. “But I’m quick.” Beau flexed one arm to show off her muscles.

“Alas, I missed it. I hear Jester won, I’d have loved to see that.”

“Fuck you,” Beau said, then started as the door opened. “You, hey Caleb.”

Caleb. Molly turned, his body suddenly alert, angled towards Caleb. Who was possibly the most handsome man in the world.

Beau looked between them, at Caleb’s face, at Molly’s face.

“Oh, _shit_ ,” she said, at whatever she saw there.

“Beau,” Molly said, “darling dearest. I think I heard the gate open. It could be Yasha, all sun-burned, sweaty, and dusty from the road. Off you go, now,”

“Nah,” Beau said. “This is funner. Hey, Caleb, how can you bear those long sleeves in this heat?”

Caleb pulled at the worn and fraying cuff of his left sleeve. “I am not wearing my jacket,” he said, like that was an actual answer. 

“You must be fucking boiling,”

“I am fine, Beau. I run cold.”

“Leave him be. The man likes long sleeves.”

Beau gave him a disbelieving look. What? Molly just didn’t like the bitter twist to Caleb’s smile, or the way he shifted on his feet when questioned. They made him feel a protective kind of anger.

Caleb sat, careful, on the sofa across from Molly. He looked at a hole in the knee of his trousers, picked at it.

“We were talking about Beau wrestling Jester,” Molly said. “Apparently they punched each other for fun.”

“Yeah, Molly missed it. Come to think of it, so did you.”

“Ja,” Caleb said. His eyes were wide and vulnerable.

“Beau,” Molly said in warning.

“What? A few people missed it, I’m just saying. Both of you did.”

“Ja, I heard about it, after.”

“We’ve not really talked much, me and you, Caleb,” Beau said. “Keep yourself to yourself, I respect that, but - you got me curious.”

Caleb hunched over. Molly wanted to go over there and put an arm round him, comfort him, and was suddenly stuck. He didn’t know if it would be welcome. They’d not talked about this. It wasn’t a secret, exactly, just not something they’d… gone out of their way to be obvious about.

“He doesn’t have to tell you anything if he doesn’t want to,” Molly said.

“Course not, but aren’t you curious? I’m always curious.”

“I know everything I need.”

Caleb looked up at him, face unreadable. He opened his mouth, shut it again, and shook his head.

“There is not much to know,” he mumbled. “The world ended while I was in England. I survived the next ten years, often on my own. It was hard and miserable and I do not like talking about it. I was glad to find this place. Who are you, Beau? What did you do? Who hurt you and who did you hurt?”

“I -” Beau said. “I’m an arsehole who punched her way across England until I got here, and I hurt the people who tried to hurt me.”

Caleb’s hands were shaking. Molly watched them tremble, his heart beating fast, hot around his temples. Caleb spread his arms wide. “I have a right to my experiences, to tell them to who I will, just as everyone here does. And so what if I prefer to wear long sleeves to cover - to cover some scars I don’t like. So what.”

Beau tucked her hands under her armpits. “Like I said, I’m an arsehole,” she said. 

“Maybe you should try ‘sorry’,” Molly said, voice cold.

Beau stood up, glaring, arms crossed. “I am sorry, but curiosity isn’t bad. Orna and Gustav accept just anybody, we don’t know shit about the people here -”

Molly stood too. “Because it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t fucking matter. The world ended and everyone went a little mad and did shitty stuff and now they’re here, trying not to! THAT’S what matters!”

“Beau is not wrong,” Caleb said. “Not really.” He was looking down at his hands, expression far away. “I could be anything or anyone. I could be a monster.”

“You aren’t though. You aren’t.” Molly said.

“How would you know?”

“I’d know, alright, I’d know. I know you. I know what you are, you’re -” the best man I know. “Not a monster.”

Molly sat down beside Caleb, not caring at all. He leaned over and put his hand on Caleb’s knee.

“We’ve all done dreadful things to survive, all of us. And everyone here is here because they want to do better than that, because they want a future where no-one has to. A sweeter, better place. Whatever you’ve done, I don’t care, because you’re here now, in the library, doing good.” 

Caleb looked at him and Molly looked back, breath caught in his throat, a heavy warmth in his chest. His hand where he touched Caleb tingled, he stared at Caleb’s scruffy almost-beard and the dark shadows under his blue eyes and his pink mouth and the freckles across his cheekbones and his big long strong nose. Molly’s hand twitched. He wanted to always remember Caleb’s face. The best face.

Caleb’s response was a bitter un-laugh. Molly hated it. 

Molly opened his mouth to say more, to try and force the knowledge of how good and wonderful he was into Caleb’s head, but was interrupted by Beau clearing her throat.

Oh, yeah. Beau was here.

He looked round at her. She smiled, a little awkward.

“Well, that definitely was the gate going. We should maybe. See if it’s Yasha?”

Molly took his hand from Caleb’s knee.

“Shall we?”

Caleb nodded, offered up a thin shadow of a smile.

They left together. Caleb staring at his feet the whole time, lips quirked unhappily. Molly wanted to stop it, make him smile.

“Hey, if it’s not Yasha it might be a trader. We can get you some books, or new boots maybe - yours are in a state.”

“Ja,” Caleb said, like he hadn’t heard Molly at all.

There was a small crowd, and loud voices at the gate and Molly stopped, and Caleb shied away from it. He saw Yasha, head and shoulders above the rest, her face was graver than normal. Someone ran past him, shouting for Gustav. A thick, sick worry began churning in his stomach.

“Drama, huh?” he said to Caleb, trying to smile, trying to laugh it off. Caleb’s eyes were hazing over, blank. The crowd parted and Molly saw that Yasha had her arm around a woman, a woman in a terrible fucking state, a woman who was drooping off her and who had fresh burn marks on her face and arms.

Beside him Caleb went very still.

Gustav ran past him, followed by Jester.

“I found her at a village. It was still burning,” Yasha said. “They were all dead, except for her.”

Caleb pushed past him, long legs eating up the ground. His body was stiff, he looked wrong, terribly wrong.

“Was there - “ he said. “Was there a symbol?”

Yasha nodded. Caleb turned around again, and stumbled back towards Molly. His eyes were empty, and then he stopped, and stared down at his hands, and he wasn’t in there any more, he wasn’t there. Caleb was gone.

“Caleb?” 

Molly’s voice shook.

Caleb didn’t say a word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love all the comments but am finding it hard to reply to them now. I also will probably not correct typos after posting but thanks to the people who point them out!
> 
> I wish I had something softer to share after this latest episode. 
> 
> Next chapter is heavy and potentially triggering, so you're aware.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oof, Ouch (Caleb Backstory)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, the trigger warnings are WOW for this chapter.
> 
> This chapter includes:  
> \- a dissociative episode  
> \- suicidal ideation  
> \- briefly but graphically described self harm (cutting)  
> \- knives  
> \- burn scars in the art  
> \- a mentioned but not described child death  
> \- cult dynamics  
> \- hinted abusive relationships
> 
> If any of that is gonna trigger you, there's a non-descriptive plot description in the end comments. Go right to that.
> 
> Art by Kesterite

Caleb was not in his body. His body was not a good place to be. He was away. Sounds did not come through. Touches could not hurt him. Nothing could hurt him. He was calm, but that wasn’t right. It was more like he was not. 

Caleb no longer wanted to die. He had, for a while. He did still want to just have never been, sometimes, and if never being was like this cool echoing nothing, it seemed good and perfect.

He drifted in it while all the bad stuff went on somewhere else. Not to him. He had done this before, when he had been burned, and when he had done the burning. It wasn’t happening to him. He was not there. He was not.

It couldn’t be forever. It had never been forever. He hated that. He wanted it to be forever, to never have to do what this revelation would demand of him, to not have to do the painful thing, to not face this. Hadn’t he seen enough? Hadn’t he been torn apart a thousand times? When would it stop?

He came back in degrees. To the spill of light over a booted foot tapping anxiously on the ground. To the smell of damp and books and dust. To the lack of noise and shouting. To small warm hands on his back.

“Nott,” he said. His voice sounded wrong. The booted foot stopped tapping. 

“Nott,” he said again.

“Shh, Caleb,” she said. “You had one of your… episodes.”

“Nott says you’ve done this before.” That was Molly, wasn’t it. Of course. He was to be offered no mercy at all, and the one man he would want to keep in ignorance was soon to know everything.

“Yes,” he said. “It is called a dissociative episode. I read that in a book.”

“What -” Molly stopped, and took a deep breath in. “Can I help?”

Caleb shook his head. “I need to tell Gustav and Orna something. It is very important.”

He felt flat and emptied out. This was it. It was the end of everything good he’d scraped together. Not that he didn’t deserve to lose it. Nott didn’t though. And what would happen to Frumpkin without him? He should never have dared to love anything, not him. Not the monster.

Ah, well. He’d had it for nearly two months of this glorious summer. He’d never forget any of it, not til he died. Though he thought that this time it might not be so far away, death. He’d take the memory of loving Molly with him. He would never ever poison that wonderful man by letting him know that the monster he’d been fucking had loved him, too.

“Caleb, you went away again.”

“Sorry,” he said.

“Don’t be sorry,” Molly said. “Just - I don’t want you doing anything that’s hurting you like this.”

“I have to,”

“Are you sure?” asked Nott. Bless her. She’d be better off without him, too. He nodded, and tried to smile at her.

“I’ll fetch Gustav and Orna,” Molly said. “But they’ll want to know why.”

“It is about the burning. I know who did it. And why. And I think New Refuge might be in danger.”

“Oh,” Molly said. 

Caleb closed his eyes. He didn’t want to see the realisation and then the disgust dawn on Molly’s face. He deserved it, but didn’t want it. Coward. Coward, murderer, he poisoned everything and deserved whatever punishment was heaped on him. He’d welcome it.

Molly didn’t say anything more. But he stepped closer to Caleb. Maybe he was going to hit Caleb. That would be alright. He’d deserve that too. But Molly didn’t. He leaned over, almost hesitantly. Caleb felt Molly’s breath warm on his face. And then he pressed his lips, soft and dry, to Caleb’s forehead.

It hurt more than a punch would have.

Then he was gone, and Caleb concentrated on planning what he was going to say. 

“Nott,” he said. “Maybe you could pack some of my things.”

“Are we leaving? I don’t want to leave. I will, though -”

“Nein,” he said. “Just me.”

“No!” she said.

“Yes,” he said back. “This is a good place to grow up. Please, Nott. Do this for me.”

She buried her head in his arm, sobbing. He had done this, too. He had. And he would keep doing this, on and on.  
“Please,” he said again.

“Alright,” she said, through sniffles. “Alright. But I love you, Caleb, you’re my - you’re my brother and I love you -”

“I know,” he said. “I know.” He did. And he loved her too. Which was why this was necessary.

He waited. He dug his fingernails into his wrists and waited.

And then Molly came back with Gustave and Orna and it was time.

“You need to be warned,” he said, “about a dangerous group of people. They burned the village that girl came from and I know so. I think they may be looking for me. And if I’m right, you are in terrible danger. They will -” he swallowed. “They will burn this place to the ground. They will hurt you and like it. They will steal those they think young enough to re-educate. I know this, because from before the earthquakes until just three years ago, I was one of them.”

He kept his eyes on Molly’s face, waiting for something. Molly was frowning, his fists were clenched. Good, good. Let him be able to let go of Caleb with no grief.

Gustav sat down. “Tell us about it,” he said. “From the beginning.”

Caleb did.

He was 16, in the care of his aunt, in a new country on a student visa. Very bright, astonishing really, at Cambridge University, two years too young. His parents couldn’t come. But they skyped. They were terribly proud of him. Encouraged him to make friends.

He was 16, and it was hard to make friends. He was alone. One of his tutors invited him to a tutor group. Mr Ikithon said it was for special people, bright people, people too clever to be held back by the rules of what should be taught and how. He half believed it. He wanted to believe it.

He was 17 and what they were learning was far away from good and right and he knew it and didn’t care. He was arrogant, and drove people away, but it was OK, because he was special and this was his right. One day there’d be a world where he’d be in his rightful place and everyone would know it. People like him would rule, and do a better job of it too.

He was 18. He fell in love with a man who was cruel to him. He was young enough and arrogant enough to mistake beauty for goodness, to not know that some people can want to fuck you without liking you, even a little bit. The man laughed at the way he talked, the way he was. If he were strong, it wouldn’t bother him.

He was 18 and Mr Ikithon was fired, and out of protest, he left university. Only now, he was not legally in the country, and he was reliant. He lived with the other loyal ones, Aedwulf who he loved but didn’t love him and Astrid and Mr Ikithon and he was more alone than he had ever been before and so ashamed.

He was 19 and he found out his parents had died in a car crash. He cried, later. Mr Ikithon reminded him that this grief was a weakness below a man like him. That Caleb’s loyalty should stay where it belonged. To prove it, Caleb let Mr Ikithon brand him. Over the heart. He was strong, he was above love and grief. Compassion and care was a lie that the weak told to keep the strong shackled.

He was 20 and he was weak. He was 20 and he was hungry and he was afraid he’d be sent back to Germany because he wasn’t here legally any more and there was nothing to go back too. All he had was here. He was 20 and Aedwulf was fucking someone else, a new person on the house, and it was his weakness that made him care.

He was 21. They moved to a house deep in the fens, very isolated. There were eight of them now. He was 22 and there were twelve of them. He was 23.

He was 23 and the earthquakes came. He was 23 and the floodwaters rose.He was 23 and sickness ripped through the survivors. He was 23 and Ikithon’s People were miraculously unharmed, untouched. He was 23 and they were proved right. He was 23 and they could rebuild the world as it ought to be. He was 23 and people died.

He was 23 and nothing was there to restrain them any more. And there was fire, pressed to his flesh when he was weak, sometimes he begged to get it. And sometimes he did it to others. The longer you went without screaming or passing out, the better.

He was 24 and he bowed to Ikithon. He was 25 and there were so many scars. He was 26 and he killed someone. He was 27 and he thought of killing himself. He was 28 and he pleaded for the fire. He was 29 and his scarred wreck of a heart wanted something good. There was a child. She had belonged to a lower member of the cult, someone who had begged for her life at a no-account settlement, who had been so weak the fire had killed her. Caleb had been there when her heart gave out from the shock. The girl didn’t eat enough. This was her fault, because she was too weak to earn or fight for it. Caleb snuck her his. He had more than enough, despite his failings, because Ikithon thought he was the best of them. It was his to give, wasn’t it? It was his.

He was 29 and Aedwulf caught him giving this child food.

He was 29 and he was ordered to burn her. If not, they would both burn. He refused. He survived. She didn’t.

He was 29 and he remembered everything and that smell would never be gone from his nose.

He was 30, and he escaped.

“And then,” he said, voice a ruin, “I was alone for two years, until Nott. And I think - I was his favourite. I should have known. They will always be coming for me.”

He closed his eyes and let his head tip back. It was done and nothing mattered any more. 

Gustav sighed out, a great gust of air.

“Fuck,” he said. 

“Fuck,” Orna agreed.

“You’ve been through hell, Caleb,” Gustav said. “Absolute hell. But with respect - how could they know where you are? The burning of the village could be a coincidence. I don’t doubt they’re as dangerous as you say -”

“They will burn you alive!” Caleb cried out. “I know, because I was there when they did it to others! I know because _I did it myself_!”

Molly flinched. Now he knew what Caleb was. Now he’d hate Caleb forever. Which was as it should be.

“Caleb,” Orna said. Her voice was terribly gentle. Caleb closed his eyes. “I believe you.”

Finally. It was almost a relief. 

“I have a request,” he said, past his numb lips and tongue. “Please let Nott stay. She is an innocent girl and deserves a good life. I will not cause trouble when I leave, I will not lead anyone here.”

“Leave?” Molly said. 

“We aren’t going to make you leave,” Gustav said. “If we made everyone who’d done something awful leave, we’d have no-one here at all.”

Caleb burst out in a bitter, self-hating laugh. “I assume there are limits to this kindness,” he said, his voice shaking.

“Yes,” Orna said “and you’re nowhere close to them.”

“You don’t - you don’t understand. Please, I am begging you. Please. I do not deserve - I am not worthy - I will bring fire and pain down on you, you are good people, if you will not throw me out -”

“Caleb,” Molly said in his soft and caring voice and no, no, it could not be borne. Molly reached out to touch him and Caleb jerked away.

“Do not touch me!”

Molly backed away with wide eyes. “Alright,” he said. “Alright.”

“Look,” Caleb said. “Look what they will do to your children.” 

He rolled up his sleeves to reveal the burn scars there, ugly and awful. Unbuttoned his shirt to show the burns and brands on his chest. He knew he was a mess, a disgusting mess, every mark a sign of a time he should have realised and left, no matter the cost to him.

He was crying. He wanted them to hurt him, punish him like he deserved for - for failure, for selfishness for imagining he could be better. Him, who’d let an innocent child die. Him, who’d not spoken to the parents who loved him for a year before he died. Him, who had the deaths of others on his hands and heart. A library. What was a library in the face of all that horror? His hope had been a lie, a self-serving lie, and he wanted to get what he deserved.

“Please,” he said. “Please. I deserve it.”

“Caleb,” Molly said, slowly. “I-”

Caleb didn’t want to hear whatever kind lie Molly was going to tell him. He got up, knocking his chair over. His open shirt hung off him. 

“I -” he said, and then shook his head. He stumbled blindly for the door out of the library, into the outside.

The sun was still shining, bright in his eyes. Everyone could see him, see what he was. Good, good, let them know, let it all be known.

He went home. Not-home. It was his home, the closest thing he’d had since he was 16 and stupid, and he didn’t deserve it. No matter what anyone said.

He staggered in. They’d made little changes to the place. He had books in his room. These things hurt.

His bags were on his bed. Nott had packed them, good girl. He could just - he could just leave. They couldn’t keep him here. He could. But he didn’t want to, and wasn’t that just like him. If they’d thrown him out he’d have gone with a lot of regret and no struggle, but he didn’t have the courage to do what they wouldn’t, because at his heart he was still the selfish entitled boy who could be tricked by being called special and clever.

He looked down his mess of a body. His eyes snagged on that first burn, that first brand. Ikithon’s symbol, later burned on every body, every home, every single thing he wanted it on. A flame with a tear within it. Because the fire would burn up all weakness, tears among them, stupid stupid stupid boy.

He hated it. He hated it and he hated himself. He should have died rather than get it, thrown himself into a river, in front of a bus, slit his wrists. If he had died none of this mess would be happening now.

Like everyone who lived post-apocalypse, he had knives. He picked one up. His hand was steady now. He brought the knife to his chest, to the brand.

The first cut didn’t hurt at all. It wasn’t until he saw the flesh part and the blood come that he knew he’d been successful. So he cut again, and again, and again, obliterating it. It started to hurt, sting and then burn and that was good, better, best, so he kept going. That’s what he’d liked about the burning, the way the pain made his mind blank and white and quiet.

Then there were hands and voices, more than one of each. Small brown hands, bigger browner scarred hands, Nott and Molly had found him doing this and the shame and the guilt were suffocating.

“No, no, Caleb, no, stop -”

He shook his head, unable to speak.

“Caleb, give me the knife, please darling,” in Molly’s low, urgent voice. 

“Molly, look at him, oh god,” And Nott was crying. Over him? She shouldn’t.

“Give me the knife, please.”

It wasn’t doing anything for him any more. Caleb gave Molly the knife. He lost track of it - and Nott - and Molly was kneeling in front of him pressing cloth to Caleb’s chest. There was blood on Molly’s hands. On the cloth. On Caleb.

“Oh, darling,” Molly said. “Oh, dearest heart. Jester’s coming, ok? With bandages. And she’s got these pills, I’ve had them once or twice, they make you feel all relaxed and floaty so that the bad shit goes away -”

That sounded good. But he deserved this, didn’t he?

 _maybe Ikithon’s the one that deserves this_ a small voice in his head said to him. It was tiny and weak and like it had taken this complete emptying out of everything to hear it.

He shook it away. He could think about that later. 

“I would like to feel relaxed,” he said, in his new strange voice. “I have not been relaxed since I was 16.”

Molly laugh-sobbed at Caleb’s chest. Caleb lifted an arm that didn’t feel like it belonged to him and used the hand at the end of it to touch Molly’s hair.

“This isn’t your fault,” he said. “You could not have stopped me.”

“I never thought I could fix you with my dick, Caleb Widogast.”

Alright. Just as long as Molly knew.

Then Nott was back with Jester. Caleb expected wails, but Jester was calm and grave and quiet, and she cleaned the wounds with antiseptic and iodine that he knew she boiled down from walnut shells. Clever girl. It stung, and he hissed.

“I know, Caleb, but let her, please?” Nott said. She was rubbing her hands up and down her arms.

Molly wordlessly stroked his arm. It felt good, Molly’s warm hand through cloth, and then on his scarred, bare skin. He hadn’t let anyone touch his bare upper body in years.

Jester pressed a bandage pad to his body and held it there. A blood spot soaked through. It was red on white.

“I wish I had more micropore, this is going to be awkward, the placement -”

But she got it bandaged onto him, bulky and awkward as it may be. 

“You come to me tomorrow as soon as you get up to get that changed, you hear me?”

“I’ll make sure he does,” Nott said.

“Now, Caleb, if you want I can give you something to calm you down until tomorrow - I don’t like to use them a lot a lot but -”

“I would want,” he said, slowly. “I would want that.”

“Alright.”

She rummaged in her medical kit and pulled out a packet of pills. She took one out of the blister pack and he took it. 

“With water,” she said, and there was a glass in his hand, cool and leaving condensation on his skin, and he drank it down.

“Watch him tonight,” Jester said to Molly and Nott. “Anything sharp needs to be away.”

“I am not going to do any more,” Caleb said.

They all looked at him.

“I’ll hide them,” Nott said. “I’m good at hiding things.”

“Let’s get you to bed, hm?” Molly said. “Get some rest. Recover.”

Yes. That would be good. He let Molly help him to his feet and followed him. And Nott was there again.

“I’m staying in here too,” she said, fierce and loyal and full of wild love. His wonderful sister.

“Of course,” Molly said.

Between the two of them they got his boots off, and agreed on leaving his trousers on. Whatever Jester had given him was working now. It was like nothing mattered, but in a good way. All the tension drained from his muscles.

“I love you,” he said, to both of them, but maybe it came out in German, or not at all.

He lay down on the bed. Molly lay behind him with an arm over his waist. Nott curled up into his torso. He had upset her, very badly. Tomorrow he would feel bad about it.

That was for tomorrow. Thinking was for tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Caleb reveals that he was part of a study group turned cult, that Ikithon manipulated him into becoming an illegal resident of the UK so Caleb felt trapped. He explains that he finally left after nearly fifteen years of being hurt, abused and tormented because he considers himself responsible for the death of a young girl he was sneaking food.
> 
> After that, he runs home and self-harms, before Nott and Molly stop him and Jester bandages him and gets him to sleep.
> 
> I didn't know the fandom would be in fucking mourning when this went up, so wow, fuck me I guess


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oh no, feelings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> still some references to self harm and blood in here.

Caleb was warm next to Molly. It was the early hours of the morning, when night gave way to dawn in soft breaths, and all the birds sang to greet the rays of the sun. Caleb was alive and breathing, Nott curled up next to him fully dressed, a protective hand on his arm. She wasn’t asleep either. She lifted her head and she and Molly shared a tired, understanding glance.

Molly wanted to touch Caleb all over, check every inch of him for hurts to kiss into healing. He couldn’t though. Caleb would heal on his own schedule, in his own way. And who was he to try and fix someone else? He could barely hold himself together some days. Not that it was unique to be like that, not now. Everyone had their wounds and their broken places, and that wasn’t going to change until the world was different. All a person could do was try to be as kind as possible and not add to the suffering.

Still, it made him feel so helpless and small. The memory of Caleb carving into his own chest, eyes huge and bright and flat - it would be with him a long time. He could still feel Caleb’s blood drying sticky on his hands. He shuddered, despite the heat.

“Don’t wake him,” Nott whispered. 

Molly shook his head. He’d rather not. Caleb needed his sleep. He needed so much more than that, but the sleep was within Molly’s power.

Small, in a half-secret and deniable movement, he moved his nose into the back of Caleb’s neck, to feel the warmth of him close to Molly’s mouth and catch the living smell of him in Molly’s nose. 

The sun rose. Caleb twitched in his sleep and both Nott and Molly held their breath, in case they were needed. But he slept on, and they weren’t.Molly felt bruised, battered by the day before.

Eventually Caleb woke. The first change was his breathing. Then his body went from soft warm safe to tense, high alert, the muscles in Caleb’s back bunching and tightening as Molly watched. 

Molly cleared his throat. “It’s me, Caleb. It’s Molly. And Nott is in front of you.”

Molly couldn’t see Caleb’s face, but he could imagine it. The still mouth, quirked down, eyes lowered, a frozen guilty kind of fear in every line.

“Ah,” Caleb said. “You both stayed.”

“Of course we did,” Nott said, sounding too tired for the proper note of outrage.

Caleb breathed out a long, shuddery breath. Molly wished he’d talk, say something. No matter how much it hurt to hear.

“We’re going to see Jester today, ok? To get - to get your bandage changed. And I don’t know, I have to check the traps, have to -”

“I can stay with him, if you and Caleb want,” Molly said.

“I am here and not a child,” Caleb said. “And I promise. I am not planning - it was a moment, that was all. I am not planning a repeat.”

Molly kept his breathing steady, his hand on the mattress next to Caleb’s tense back.

“I’m sorry, Caleb. Can I stay with you today? It’s not really for you. It’s for me.”

“For you? Why would you want to stay?”

The worst thing about that question was the honest confusion in it. And how on earth could Molly answer so that Caleb would believe him? Seeing it had been a bitter, sick heartbreak, a pain not for himself but - an echo of the man he - the man he-

Oh. The man he loved. 

“I saw you hurting,” Molly said, very carefully. “I just want to be near you, for a little while.”

“Oh, alright.” Caleb said. “Oh, oh no. I left the library unlocked. “

“No-one will have taken anything,” Molly said. “But I can go and, I don’t know, keep an eye on it?”

“I write down the books people take out on a list and when I expect them back on the same list.”

“Very clever. Very organised, darling.”

“Alright, Caleb, up you get,” Nott said and wriggled out of bed. 

Caleb shuffled out. He turned his head to look at Molly, a long look all at Molly’s face. Molly couldn’t figure out what he was looking for.

Molly slid out of the bed himself, feeling as creased and used as the clothes he’d slept in, but not caring much about any of that. He was lost in uncertainty - what he wanted to do versus what the right thing to do was, all mixed in with the confusion of his aching, beating heart. Best not to do a thing, avoid screwing up. Caleb had enough to deal with without Molly’s selfish stupid feelings getting in the mix.

“I’ll go to the library,” he said. “If you want, I can keep you company today.”

“I would like company,” Caleb said.

Alright then.

Molly would give Caleb anything and everything he wanted, and never push or angle for more, not once. He would do that. He would be a safe place for Caleb to lay down his burdens, an easy bed to lie in, someone Caleb could experience uncomplicated pleasure with. He would do that, and not once spoil it or ruin it.

So Molly went to the library, and tidied it up a little, and tried to talk himself out of love. He loved Caleb. So what. He loved a lot of people. He was confused, that was all, loving Caleb and combining it with the drama and the protectiveness to make it this thing.

He didn’t want to rank kinds of love. He didn’t want to call this love bigger or grander or more important, it wasn’t. He had always said that, always believed it. He didn’t want to love Caleb in a way that might change things with the other people he loved. He wouldn’t, he refused. 

So it felt like comfort, so it felt like aching, so it felt like Caleb was his favourite person, so it felt like joy, so it felt like his bare hot feet bathing in a cool stream, so it felt like Jester’s baking tasted, so fucking what.

“Fucking - fucking get it together, Mollymauk,” he said to himself. “Fucking - just. Just learn to be a person.”

“I think you manage personhood rather well,” Caleb said behind him.

Molly jumped.

“Fuck, Caleb,” he said. “How do you walk so quietly?”

“I think it is more that you weren’t paying attention.”

Molly offered up a short, sharp laugh. “Probably, yeah.”

Caleb moved with cautious steps, sat with slow movements. His face was still, like he was thinking hard about something. Molly’s gaze went to his shirt buttons, looking for the bandage underneath them. He flashed back to last night, the red wet half-shine of the blood, the sharp gleam of the knife, the fear that it was even worse than it had looked.

He looked away.

“Jester said there is a kind of group,” Caleb said. “Voluntary. Before they would have called it group therapy, but Jester was very clear she has not qualified as a therapist. But she thinks it might be helpful for me.”

“Do you think it will be?”

“Maybe?” Caleb sighed. “I am so tired of hating myself. I am even more tired of feeling like I deserve to.”

“I know some people go,” Molly said. “I think - I would be surprised if yours was the worst story there. That alone might help you.”

“Molly, will you be honest with me?”

Sharp, sudden fear. Honest? About what? He had secrets for a reason.

“Depends,” Molly said, smiling.

“Do you think I am a bad man?”

Oh, Caleb. “No,” Molly said without even thinking. “No, I don’t. I think you did bad things because you couldn’t see a way out, but I don’t think you’re a bad person.”

“You don’t think I am a bad man. Jester and Nott do not think it either. Nor do Orna and Gustav.”

Molly got up to take Caleb’s hand in his.

“What is this about, darling?”

“Evidence,” Caleb said, with a thin, wobbly smile. “For if anything like last night happens again.”

Molly wasn’t going to get teary-eyed. “Six whole people think you’re a good man,” he said.

“Let’s not go quite that far. I can accept not bad, if I force myself. Good is asking too much of me.”

Molly pressed his lips to the top of Caleb’s head. “Alright,” he said, against Caleb’s hair. “We’ll take that slow.”

Caleb sucked in a shaking breath. “I am so sorry,” he said, voice breaking. “I am so sorry.”

Molly moved, straddled Caleb’s lap, took Caleb’s face in hands. 

“You,” he said, fiercely, “You are alive. You have suffered and struggled and you are alive, and if you can take it there’s a second chance for you here. And you do not apologise for having a bad episode, you don’t. I was scared, alright, and Nott was scared, because we both lo - care about you. But don’t apologise to me for having a bad time sometimes.”

Caleb’s hands were on his hips. They felt right there. It wasn’t even a turn-on, just a comfort, being so close here and now.

Molly’s hands fell from Caleb’s hips to his shirt. He couldn’t stop seeing the cuts, broad and red and bleeding.

“I know - I know you don’t want me to see you shirtless,” Molly said, mouth thick, “but could I see the bandage? I want - I can’t - I keep seeing it.”

Caleb’s hands covered his, and moved them away. Alright. It was ok - but then Caleb was unbuttoning his first few shirt buttons. He pulled the shirt aside to show a slice of burn-scarred skin and the bandage, over his heart.

Molly didn’t touch it. It must hurt, under there. But seeing it soothed him.

“Jester says it will heal. It will scar, but -”

“We both have a lot of scars,” Molly said, soft. “So many.”

“So many,” Caleb echoed, and tilted Mollys face up for a gentle kiss.

“Now, Mollymauk,” Caleb said. “If you keep being all gentle and careful all day I will start to worry you are dying.”

Molly laughed, a little shaky. “Sorry for disappointing.”

“Please flirt inappropriately with me again so that I know you are alright.”

“I’m straddling your lap, Caleb.”

Caleb’s smile was beautiful. “All the same,” he said.

“Hmm,” Molly said. “What if I asked you to tell me something you really wanted to do in bed? Something we’ve not done yet?”

Caleb swallowed.

Molly carried on, voice all mock innocence. “Anything you want, darling, I’m not easy to shock.”

Caleb’s hands twitched. “I would -” he was bright red. Caleb was right, this was more fun and better than being sad and scared and suffering from an emotional hangover. He could put all his feelings away and be the flirt Caleb needed.

“I’d like to fuck you,” Caleb said into Molly’s ear. “I mean. Penetrate you?” He sounded nervous. Molly’s heart beat hard.

“If that’s what you want, darling, I can arrange it.”

“I would like it the other way around, too. I have - I have touched myself to the thought of it.”

Alright, alright. Molly could do this. “I’m just as experienced either way,” he said. Which was not a lie. “Though I’ve been with more people with vaginas than people with penises.” Also not a lie. Good job Molly.

“Not tonight,” Caleb said, suddenly serious again. “I need a few days to get in the right headspace for sex. But - I would like to. With you.”

“Yeah,” Molly said, head in Caleb’s neck, hiding his face. “Yeah, we can - we can do that.”

He could do that. Never mind - anything else. Caleb wanted this. Caleb needed it. He could be this. He could be Caleb’s safe space, his easy relaxed fun friend, no need to make it weird. No need at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos feed me and keep me going.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oh??

Caleb went to the group thing. It was - not terrible? He wasn’t yet up to telling the whole, miserable story again, and when his time came around he ended up talking a lot about dropping out, about being here illegally and reliant on Ikithon, and how vulnerable and afraid and ashamed he’d been. His guilt, about how he had stopped calling his parents. It felt - better, after, raw but better, like cleaning out an infected wound.

There were others there. Diane said it was her baby daughters birthday, and the girl would have been nine years old. Not hard to make a picture there. James talked in a raw, flat voice about the first person he’d killed, a mercy-killing of someone he loved who went unnamed. All the stories were told with the pain a rushing river under them, and everyone got something out of it.

Caleb was not alone.

He thought he might keep coming. It would take time, but eventually, maybe, he could be happy.

Molly was waiting outside, picking at the frayed edge of a hole in his jeans. It was an overcast day, threatening a summer rain, and the smudged sky hung low in the air.

Molly looked up as Caleb left and smiled, so genuine and happy that it half broke Caleb’s heart.

“Hey,” Molly said. “I’ve been trying to persuade Orna to put me back on scavving rotation for an hour.”

“Any luck?” 

“She said she’d think about it.” Molly pulled a face. “This is winding me up now. It’s not even really about me.”

Caleb hummed under his breath.

“I just want to be useful again,” Molly said. “Why won’t she let me?”

“Maybe she is worried. She seems to care for you a lot.”

Molly reached up to fiddle with one of his earrings. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, but - she was the one trained me for this. Let me do it.”

“Trained you?”

Molly looked away, his finger went still on his earring, then started moving again.

“I was fuck all before I got here, trust me.”

“I am going to the library, Molly. Would you like to join me?”

“Not today, darling, I’ve agreed to watch some of the kids. Maybe we could see each other tonight? For more cuddles?”

“Cuddles would be nice,” Caleb said. They’d not had sex since his episode a few days ago and he didn’t feel ready to, just yet, still too fragile. Molly was patient, Molly was kind, much more of both than he’d have assumed of the man who blew him in a publicish place before knowing him a full week.

Under his bandaging, his healing cuts itched. This was, apparently, good. Jester checked it twice every day and it was healing as clean as could be expected.

He waved Molly off, and watched him go. His hair had faded and grown out again. Apparently he wanted to see how long it could get. He had a pleasant thought of Molly, hair down to his waist. It would suit him.

The library was approaching his ideal now, and often there were people waiting outside for him to open it. This was true today, too. A slight woman with long, straight dark hair and fair skin. She turned as he approached and he stopped at the sight of the burns on her face.

No, no, Caleb, it was not her fault. This girl had survived Ikithon’s People, had been hurt terribly by people he’d once shared bread with. He owed her kindness.

“Hello,” she said, in a soft, shy voice. “You’re Caleb, yes? Caleb Widogast?” Her eyes drank in his face, like she was memorising it. Her nerves unsettled him.

“Ja,” he said. “I am.”

He unlocked the library door. His hands shook, just a tiny bit.

“You - you had heard of the people who-”

“Who burned down your home.”

“I wouldn’t call it a home, as such,” she said, following him into the cool shadowed refuge of the library. “I had only been there two weeks.”

Caleb nodded, and didn’t look at her. There was a soft sighing out breath.

“Did the people who did this -” she gestured to the burns on her face - “hurt you too?”

“Yes,” Caleb said. “Yes they did.”

Something was niggling at him. He couldn’t place it.

“And the man who took you away, when I arrived, the one with the purple hair. That’s Molly, right? I’m trying to get to know everyone.”

“That is - you seem very interested?”

“Well, I might stay here.” Caleb didn’t want her to stay here, to have her face there reminding him of what he had once been. “I might stay here, with these good, kind people.”

“What is your name?” 

“Oh, Cree is as good as anything else.”

He wanted her out of his library, out of his home, and he didn’t know why. Perhaps he was uncomfortable at the reminder of who he had once been.

“Cree,” he said. “Can I help you with anything else?”

“Oh, not right now. This is a lovely library you have here, by the way, in a lovely town, full of lovely people. I’ve never seen anything quite like it!”

She lifted a hand, and smiled at him. Her hand had scar tissue too, burns but - something was wrong, something was wrong.

He did the breathing Molly had showed him. It calmed his heart rate down. Good. He was being unreasonable and unfair.

All the same, he felt so much better when she was gone. It was like the smell of smoke clung to her, he could so easily picture everything terrible done to him when she smiled her little smile.

Cuddles with Molly would be very welcome this evening.

The rest of his day was thankfully less unsettling. When it was done, he went round to Molly’s little house and found him on the sofa with his head on Yasha’s lap. Molly looked uncharacteristically serious, but his face twitched into a grin on seeing Caleb.

“Shuffle under my feet, darling, I want cuddles from both my favourite people tonight.” Molly lifted his legs in an impressive display of dextrous flexibility. But then, Caleb knew first hand just how flexible and dextrous Molly could be.

“Hmm,” Yasha said. 

“Am I the least favourite? To be stuck near your feet?” Caleb sat in the empty space and patted Molly’s calf. Molly’s legs came down, a comfortable, domestic weight across his lap.

Molly lifted his head. “Did you hear that? Am I to be insulted in my own home?” His eyes sparkled, his smile showed a glint of tooth.

“If you cannot give your guest the best seat -”

“The best seat is on my dick,” Molly said.

“For fucks sake,” Yasha said. “You just can’t turn it off.”

“I wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t horrifyingly inappropriate at all the best times.”

Yasha combed her fingers through Molly’s hair and Caleb fell a little more in love just from the look of satisfied animal pleasure on his face. Caleb himself found a hole in Molly’s jeans and slipped two fingers under the edges, to gently stroke the warm flesh of Molly’s calf muscle. Having his fingers against Molly’s skin was both soothing and a little exciting, always. It hadn’t slowed down for him yet, two months into whatever this was, and maybe it never would.

He allowed himself a fantasy, of him and Molly some unnamed time in the future, older. Molly’s hair was longer, and when he dyed it the silver strands made the purple very bright. He had laugh lines around his eyes and mouth, and his youthful prettiness was fading, and Caleb didn’t care because Molly would always be the most beautiful man alive for him.

Future Molly would lie in their shared bed, head on Caleb’s naked chest because in fantasy Caleb didn’t worry about the scars on his body. He would smile, and touch Caleb’s skin, and he would say sweet truths. Their life together was simple and small, but good. They were at peace. Sometimes, maybe, they argued about how many cats Caleb had.

It was a good dream, a good maybe, and it made him smile soft and too much full of his heart.

Yasha and Molly talked about nothing in particular, or Molly talked and sometimes Yasha said a few words back, and their mutual affection was obvious and entire. And Caleb would rather sit in silence feeling the texture contrasts of Molly’s leg hair and the skin underneath it, and being here in the presence of the glorious explosion that he had fallen in love with.

It was - it was good. He was not afraid or sick or anxious. He was not hating himself for enjoying it. A small thing, but hard won. Progress. Goodness. He would do nothing to break it.

“Caleb, don’t you want something to eat too?” Yasha said. Caleb blinked, startled to realise that yes, he was hungry, thank you.

“Yes please,” he said. 

“I’ll grab it, you two stay here.”

Fine by him. He liked Yasha, but time alone with Molly was always a treasure beyond price.

Molly did a situp to let Yasha out from under him, then collapsed back with a soft _oof_.

Caleb’s heart was full.

Dinner was apparently rabbit stew, with squash. It was not Caleb’s favourite but Molly ate it all with every sign of enjoyment. The bowls went outside to be returned to the kitchens in the morning and Yasha yawned, obviously and pointedly. 

Caleb had decided not to stay tonight, despite his tenderness. Who knew what might come out of his mouth if he did? His love for Molly was all on the surface tonight, waiting to trip off his tongue and change everything.

Best not.

When he left Molly pressed his body tight to Caleb and kissed him on the ear, the neck. He stuck a hot tongue out and tasted the sweat on Caleb’s neck with a filthy, breathless laugh that made Caleb shudder.

“Soon,” Caleb promised him. “Soon.”

“Soon,” Molly repeated back.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hmmm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter includes a major Borderline episode from Molly, unhealthy attitudes to sex, self hate, and a flashback to a person being unpleasant to Molly for saying No to a sexual act.
> 
> Go careful.

Soon apparently meant another week before Caleb came to him, blushing red as anything, to talk about their previous, ah, discussion about, um, penetration.

“I have arranged for Nott to be out so we may be private -” his accent got thicker when he was nervous, it was one of the things Molly adored - “and of course if you have changed your mind we needn’t do anything, we may do whatever you wish -”

Molly hadn’t changed his mind at all. He wanted this, he did, he just didn’t see the need to fill in all the context. Or at least, he wanted to be able to at some point, and to get there he’d need to get this bit over and done with, and Caleb probably - definitely - wouldn’t hurt him too horribly and Caleb didn’t need to have all of Molly’s baggage about this simple thing weighing him down, and didn’t need Molly to be difficult and not-fun.

So Molly smiled, and mostly meant it, and said yes and meant that, really truly honestly.

He wanted to, and even if he wasn’t entirely sure he did (which he was, he did) he wanted to do this for Caleb, he wanted to make Caleb feel good, give the man what he asked for.

Never mind his heart hammering or the sick feeling in his gut, that was nerves. Perfectly understandable, considering he’d never actually done this that he knew about. Not really, anyway, he didn’t think fucking it up once when drunk counted.

Well.

He wanted to be clean, he knew that. As clean as he could be, everywhere he could be- which given his options wasn’t that easy, but he managed. And then he dressed for ease of removal, more than anything.

It didn’t help his nerves.

Fucks sake. He’d had sex before. Just because this was new to him? When had Mollymauk Tealeaf ever shied away from a new experience?

And he lov- liked Caleb. Caleb wanted this. Therefore Molly would give it to him. Else Caleb might not want to spend time with Molly any more. Make people unhappy and they stop liking you, that was simple enough for even him to understand.

He breathed in slow and out hard, and headed for Caleb’s.

Caleb had dressed up, as far as he ever did. His least tattered shirt, his newest trousers. He was even clean, hair fluffy and glossy without the weight of dirt and oil. Molly’s heart stopped.Caleb was very beautiful, and Caleb was treating this like it was very important and so Molly had no out. The idea of disappointing him, taking that shy eager smile off his face made Molly want to scream.

Once the door was closed behind him, Caleb took Molly’s face in his hands and kissed him, deep and passionate, lips trembling a little bit. Molly’s anxieties faded - this was good, he liked this - until Caleb pulled away, leaving Molly’s lips tingling.

“I cannot wait to fuck you,” Caleb said.

It was hot, it was, Caleb so intent and wanting, the idea of being fucked was really good, it was just - what if he wasn’t any good? What if it hurt? What if he just didn’t like it?

If he could get himself to the being fucked without any of the actual… rest of it, without this fear and anxiety, he thought he might be ok. So if he could get this first time over and done with, out of the way, the second and third time might actually be some fun.

He let Caleb kiss him again, and walk him into the bedroom, where Caleb undressed him. Molly was slow to get hard today, but was at least half the way there so Caleb would have no reason to suspect that anything was wrong. Because it wasn’t. Nothing was wrong.

Caleb’s hand went to his dick, and that was absolutely fine. Never let it be said that Molly couldn’t get hard for Caleb’s hands on him, he always, always could. He went for Caleb’s belt, undid it, slipped his hand inside to get a good grip on Caleb’s cock. Caleb’s gasp made him actually want, gut shivery and hot, cock aching. This, he was used to this, knew he was good at this. He’d been told so.

Caleb kissed and licked and nipped at his jaw, his neck and Molly shuddered. Yeah, good. Then they were on the bed somehow, and Caleb was pushing his own trousers off and his face was intense. Intent. Other words like that.

“One - one moment, bitte,” Caleb said, and leaned over to get something out of a drawer and let it fall the mattress with a soft noise. Molly glanced over, knew Lube when he saw it. He swallowed.

Caleb returned , pressed his shaking mouth to Molly’s collarbone, bit his way down to Molly’s nipple. And it was good, it _was_ , and Molly was hard so everything was alright, he was enjoying himself, that’s what being hard meant.

“How - how? On your back like this, on your hands and knees -”

“Hands and knees”, Molly said. It was probably better if Caleb wouldn’t be looking at him. 

Caleb moved to let him rearrange himself, hands and knees. His hands were shaking so he closed them into fists, concentrated on his breathing. It was alright. He could do this. It was Caleb. He’d done worse. Didn’t want that one fuck up attempt at this to be his only.

Caleb kissed down the line of Molly’s spine, with wetness, heat and teeth. It was exactly the sort of thing Molly liked but right now, no. Caleb’s hand snaked round Molly’s body to jerk his dick, and fuck, at least that wasn’t betraying him right now.

“Relax,” Caleb said. Molly tried.

The hand on his dick was gone. There was the click of the lube bottle behind him, large in the close hot breathlessness of the bed and a moment later Caleb’s finger was there, at his arsehole, cool and wet and wanting in.

And Molly wasn’t going to be any good, he wasn’t any good at this, and Caleb would stop wanting him if he found out and knew. And Molly was in a different place, with a different man, two years ago, drunk to the point of incoherence with the man - a trader he’d flirted with and offered to share a bed with, Molly had offered, not the trader, Molly should have known what he was getting into - with the man heavy on his back and trying to press his cock inside Molly and Molly didn’t like it and it hurt so he shouted and pulled away and the man yelled at him and called him a cocktease and a piece of shit and threw Molly out into the night and his clothes after him, so he dressed and slept outside and never told the truth because he was so ashamed and couldn’t do this basic fucking thing and he should have known he’d fail.

“Don’t -” he said before he could stop himself, and changed it as soon as he could to “Don’t stop.”

And if he couldn’t do this one fucking thing what good was he? He was the empty shell of a man and he existed to be of use and he couldn’t even do it -

“Mollymauk?” Caleb’s soft voice cut through it all but it didn’t bring relief, it brought a vicious shame and self-disgust because Molly’s cock was soft and he’d given it all away.

“Keep going, it’s fine,” Molly said, even as his stomach churned and his heart pounded. “I want this, I do.”

“I do not think -”

“Did I ask you to think? I asked you to keep going. You wanted to fuck me, I’m here, fuck me!”

“Not like this,” Caleb sounded firm, and his finger was gone. “Call me old fashioned, but I would like for you to enjoy it.”

“Don’t - don’t stop -” Molly said. “Don’t you fucking dare, don’t you - “ to his horror his throat was thick and sore and choking like he was going to fucking cry, shit, he was so pathetic. “This is what I’m _for_!” he shouted. “I don’t want to ruin this, please!”

He risked a look at Caleb who looked- appalled, and who wouldn’t really, having their fun playdate spoiled by a wreck who couldn’t even keep it together along to be fucked up the arse.

“Caleb,” he said - begged, really - “I can enjoy it, I promise, I - I can at least pretend, I’m good at pretending.”

Caleb’s face went still. “And how often,” he said, “have you pretended with me?”

Fuck it. It was already ruined. Caleb was lost to him, pulling away. He’d seen a hint of what Molly was and hadn’t liked it. Molly had been pretending a lot, actually, had pretended to have it together, to not have the feelings he did, had pretended he wasn’t - this.

“Lots,” he said. “Obviously. Every fucking second, clearly, because I’m just that shitty a human being.”

He was naked, he was shaking, Caleb would have nothing more to do with him after this, he would be alone, and he was terrified and furious so that it was like a whiteness over his mind, blinding him, driving him ahead of it.

“Mollymauk -”

“No! I wanted this to be perfect, so fuck me, am I right? Screw me for not wanting my lack of experience getting in the way, you had to make this all a big deal, you could be fucking me now if you hadn’t done that.”

“You hadn’t -”

“No! I don’t know why everyone expects me to have done everything! When did I have the time in the three years I actually fucking remember!”

There was a silence. 

“You might have to explain that to me,” Caleb said.

Molly laughed, tears on his face. “What, you think you’re the only person allowed to be fucked up? I woke up in a shallow grave with a slit throat and a bashed in head, Caleb, I had to relearn how to speak and read, and you know what, I decided it wasn’t going to matter to me and I was going to make other people happy and you just couldn’t let me do that for you!”

Caleb reached for him and Molly pulled away, wrapped his arms around his knees and hugged himself tight.

“Why did you think hurting yourself would make me happy?” Caleb asked. He sounded so sad and the guilt of that just made Molly worse. He hated himself for this, loathed every second.

“That’s what I’m for,” he said again, bitter. “That’s what this is. The last time I tried this and fucked up it was made very clear to me that, that -”

“Molly,”

“Shut the fuck up! Don’t lie to me! If you don’t get exactly what you want from me you’ll just - throw me away! That’s all I am!”

He felt like a terrified animal caught in a trap. He felt like a monster raging through a peaceful village leaving destruction behind him. One thing he didn’t feel like was a person. He buried his face in his hands and tried to breathe, but he couldn’t.

“I’m nothing,” he said into his hands. “I’m nothing. If people don’t want me I’m useless. All I wanted was to give you what you wanted. I just want to keep you around..I’ll do anything you want, Caleb, you don’t even know.”

“Anything?” Caleb asked. Molly lifted his head from his hands and nodded. 

“Alright,” Caleb said. “Stop saying those things about you when they are not true.”

“What.”

“If you will do anything for me, I want for you to only agree to things you want to, and I want for you to stop being unkind to yourself, and I would like for you to not shout at me like this again, it was frightening.”

Molly stared at him, eyes wide. Caleb’s hands were resting on his thighs, his dick was soft between them. His hair fell in rumpled waves around his still face. Caleb seemed to actually mean it.

The grave and the fear were very close to him right now, the grave and the fear and the huge yawning lonely emptiness. Over them a strangers voice echoed, telling him he was a useless piece of shit, a tease who was lucky no-one pushed the issue, a stupid fucking worthless fuck whose only value was in what he’d let people do to him.

Caleb was disagreeing with all of those things and it was scary.

“I’m sorry,” Molly said, before giving into the tears.

“Can I touch you?”

“Yes,” Molly said, hiccuping. “Yes.”

Caleb wrapped an arm around Molly’s shoulders and kissed the top of his head. “I will never think less of you for not doing something or for saying no. I will never hurt you if I ever have any choice. If I say I want something, it is a suggestion, not a demand.”

“Alright,” Molly said.

“Tell me everything, when you feel strong enough. And as for this kind of sex - when you want it, and not before, even if that’s never.”

“Could we work up to it?”

“Of course. But I meant it about the shouting. I do not like it when people shout at me.”

It didn’t bring the shame and defensiveness like he was half-expecting. It seemed fair and reasonable instead of like an attack on him.

“Yeah,” he said. “I might try telling you that I’m upset before I get to this point.”

“What an idea,” Caleb said, holding him tighter. “Oh Molly. Ich liebe dich.”

Molly didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded nice. He wiped his eyes on Caleb’s shoulder and breathed him in.

Caleb wasn’t leaving. It was good.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oh?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> art by kesterite

Later, later, after Molly’s breathing had calmed, after the terror and rage had worn themselves out, after the crying had stopped - later, Molly was small, and quiet, eyes far away. He was not the Molly that Caleb knew, but he was still Molly. A different shade of purple, duskier and softer and more shy.

“Does - do these happen often?” Caleb asked, combing his fingers through Molly’s hair.

“No,” Molly said. “Not - not any more. When I was new and relearning things they happened a lot. Now it’s just occasionally. I really am sorry, Caleb.”

“I know you are. If I thought you weren’t -”

“Yeah,” Molly said. 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.” Molly laughed a little. “I should though. I just - I feel so useless right now, and - people won’t want me around if I’m useless. I’m taking and not giving back and that’s not who I want to be. I want to bring joy and make places better, not whatever this is.”

Molly was silent for a little while.

“I think - I was scared that you wouldn’t want me any more if I didn’t. I had this - this one night stand once, and - look, I know everyone makes assumptions but I’ve slept with 9 people, and you’re one of them, and you’re only the third man.”

He looked back over his shoulder at Caleb and his crooked little smile was a heartbreaking thing in the close hot dark.

“The last one wasn’t exactly… nice to me, when I didn’t - I didn’t know, ok? I barely know anything, and I didn’t know how to make it good and he tried and it hurt and I - couldn’t do it and, well, fuck he threw me out of his tent and I slept under the stars so, at least it wasn’t snowing or something I guess it’s just - I don’t really know what I’m doing and. I wanted you to think I did and not worry about it. I wanted you to have a good time because if anyone deserves it it’s you.”

He was breathing a little faster, talking like he wanted to throw the words away from him.

“When you say he wasn’t nice to you -”

“Well, look, I was drunk, okay, really drunk. Drunker than I’d thought I was getting, but I said I wanted to go to bed with him, it was me. And we did, but I don’t know, maybe I gave the wrong idea or something, or I misunderstood because I thought we were going to be doing something else, handjobs or something and. It’s my fault, I’m sure of it, it’s not really a big deal. Nothing bad happened to me,not like you’re thinking.”

Molly clenched the blankets in his fists and kept talking, and Caleb listened with increasing anger and grief. For Molly to blame himself over what Caleb saw as an assault, to accept the vicious insults lobbed against him for having boundaries as what he deserved. It wasn’t right. 

When he finished, Molly laughed again, and in the dark it sounded so unhappy. “I was stupid to go to bed with him in the first place, I know. But I don’t know these things, I just don’t. I’ve had three years! Orna and Gustav did their best, but they had to focus on teaching me to survive and provide. It took six months before I could speak properly and I still forget words sometimes, and I can’t read well, and I don’t know the things I’m supposed to know.”

Caleb draped his arm over Molly’s waist, and put the story about this man to the side. They could talk more, help Molly learn he wasn’t to blame. Just saying it seemed to have helped. 

“Like what?”

“Like everything. I pick up stuff from context. Like buses. People talked about a bus, I didn’t know what that was so I just smiled and nodded. They said they went places on them so, ok, it’s some form of travel. Lots of people could be on them, apparently, so BIG travel. Then I finally got out into the world and I saw some, with the word on them, and I knew what buses were. I can do that for a lot.”

To have all that knowledge robbed from him - Caleb had loved learning, still did even though it had caused him such pain. To have to learn in secret, through hints, to have to hide it. Caleb kissed the back of Molly’s neck.

“I have an idea,” he said. “A couple, actually, for tomorrow night. But I want them to be surprise. You can say no to them even after I suggest them. Is that alright?”

“I love surprises,” Molly said. “Well, good surprises.”

“I promise they will both be good surprises.”

“Ok,” Molly said. “Once more, though. How I spoke to you tonight was not alright, and I’m sorry, and I will try with all my power to not let it happen again. I - I care about you. You’re my - my friend. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Caleb’s chest twisted up on itself.

“I care about you too, Mollymauk.”

He cared too much. He cared too deeply. Molly was almost as broken as Caleb was, under the smiles and the flirty face. Caleb thought of how it must have been, to wake up with dirt in his mouth and pain everywhere, alone and in the dark. Three years of experience and whether on purpose or by accident someone had taught him he didn’t matter unless he was useful, and if he couldn’t be that he had to be fun.

The little solar light in Molly’s bedroom suddenly made a lot of sense. His clingy physical affection with the people he loved. His constant show and flash. See me, love me, don’t let me disappear again.

Caleb never forgot a thing, not one, not even when he wanted to. Every harsh breath and suppressed sob and bitter tone of Molly’s while he spoke - every one was with Caleb forever now. 

Molly’s fists clenching in the blanket. Molly soft under his hand. The broken way he’d said ‘don’t’ and then tried to cover it up. The fear and anger in his eyes when Caleb had challenged him. Caleb knew in a way that horrified him that Molly would have let him keep going, that Molly would have suffered pain at his hands to keep Caleb close.

Fuck. Caleb was going to have to be so careful. Molly was far more tender and fragile than he liked to seem.

While Molly drifted into an emotionally exhausted sleep, Caleb planned his surprise. It was going to be good, very good.

It was a quiet day the next day, and Caleb enjoyed imagining the coming evening while he did his work. He wanted nothing more than to put that delighted smile back on Molly’s face, and Molly looked so good under moonlight and starlight. He was beautiful under all lights, of course, but moonlight looked right for him.

First, he had to see Orna and Gustav. He thought they were wavering on Molly’s restriction to New Refuge already, but he had a decent argument about Molly’s being allowed out. Once he had given it - which took him twenty stressful minutes, but anything for Molly - he had every reason to believe that it would soon be lifted.

He’d had Nott scout him out a good space - there were still empty ruins in New Refuge, not yet fixed or torn down, and one particular one was apparently stable and open to the whole sky. Apart enough that they wouldn’t be bothered.

He was flush with nervous excitement when the time came. It was like being a young man again, filled with fluttery hope over a handsome face. Only now, after so long, the result might be good. Caleb didn’t hope for Molly to love him, but Molly liking him, trusting him, wanting to be with him - all that was good enough.

Molly met him at sunset, at his house, and he was - he still looked a little subdued, from last night but not for long. His smile was uncertain.

Caleb thought of Molly thinking he wasn’t good enough. Thought of the almost secrecy they’d fallen into with no discussion, thought about how his own reluctance to be talked about or seen had been part of that. All of it, maybe, Molly could be very perceptive.

He kissed Molly, sweet and chaste, on the mouth. Outside, in good light, when people were walking around not so far away. His heart did not explode from fear and self hate.

Molly lifted a hand to his mouth. His eyes were wide. The burning orange-red of the setting sun brushed the lines of his face in gold.

“Hello, Mollymauk,” Caleb said, like he hadn’t just changed the shape of their relationship with one gesture.

“Hello,” Molly said, a soft smile curving his lips up. “Are we kissing in public now?”

“If you would like to,” Caleb said, heart thrumming.

“I would.” Molly leaned forward and kissed Caleb back, with a little more tongue than Caleb had used. When he pulled back his eyes were soft and creased at the corners. “Wait,” he said. “Does this - is this - are we- fuck.”

“We are fuck,” Caleb agreed gravely. Molly laughed out and pushed his shoulder, not hard.

“I mean,” he said. “Are we… public now? Are we… together? Boyfriends? Or just, you know, not hiding that we’re fucking. Either’s cool with me, I don’t want you to think you have to choose either of them, just - I just want to know -”

“Would you like to be publically together? As a relationship?”

There was a pause. “You want me to be honest about my feelings, right?”

“I do.”

“Yes. But you don’t have to want it, you don’t, I -”

“Then we are,” Caleb said, trying to sound calm but unable to stop from smiling. “Because I want it too.”

Molly’s “Oh,” was small and stunned and Caleb wanted to sing.

“I’ve never had a relationship before,” Molly said. “I look forward to learning how to do it. Was this the surprise?”

“One of them,” Caleb said. “You need to follow me for the other.”

“Ok,” Molly said. “I’ll go anywhere with you right now.”

Caleb took Molly to the location Nott had found for him, took him to the top of the ruined building. He had already set up chairs on the piece of floor at the top, chairs and blankets and a lantern that he lit, facing out towards the setting sun. Molly sat in his chair with an expectant and curious smile.

Caleb sat next to him and reached out for his hand. Molly linked his fingers through this.

“I cannot give you a sunset in a box, or the stars, but I can sit here with you and see them with you and tell you about them all,” Caleb said. “I know a lot about the stars.”

Molly looked at him, eyes bright, smile wide.

“I don’t even know what stars are,” he said. “Tell me everything.”

“Stars are suns, like our own,” Caleb began, “Only so far away it takes their light years, centuries, millennia to reach us.”

And over the course of the evening, Caleb taught Molly everything he knew about stars.

By the time it was very late and Caleb’s voice was hoarse, Molly knew a great deal more than he had. They were talking about constellations.

“Can just anyone make a constellation?” Molly asked. “The world changed, why can’t the stories in the stars?”

“I do not see why not.”

“Like there,” Molly said, pointing up to a cluster of stars. “It kind of looks like a cat, don’t you think? And there, a book. And there, a spade.”

Caleb saw none of them, but he saw Molly’s face lit up with the lantern and full of the joy of discovery, and he was glad he had done this.

Molly turned to face him. “I think you might be the cleverest man alive,” he said.

“I read a lot of books,” Caleb said.

“I know. I just like it.”

And he brought their mouths together for a kiss, perfect and full of feeling, under the distant stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for missing thursday's update last week, but like Molly I am a big borderline mess and I just couldn't


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ooh

Molly had a problem, and his name was Caleb. Caleb, his… boyfriend.

He’d never had a boyfriend before, or a relationship. Nothing seemed to have changed, except that now when Caleb was able to be around groups, he’d do it with a hand on Molly’s leg or gently touching Molly’s arm. And sometimes they’d share a kiss or two in public which made Molly blush like he was an innocent.

And when people asked, one of them would say, ‘yes, we’re together’. Usually Caleb because somehow Molly’s mouth was so full of sweetness and his heart so full of stars that he couldn’t speak.

He was worryingly sure he was, in fact, in love.

He had to _know_ for sure.

His best bets were Yasha and Jester. So one long august evening, with sun low and red in the sky and the air full of insects, he gathered together his two best friends for advice.

He went straight in.

“How do you know if you’re in love?”

Yasha froze with her mouth on the rim of a glass. Her mis-matched eyes went very wide. In contrast, Jester started laughing.

“Oh no,” she said. “Oh Molly.”

“What?” he said, stung.

“If you have to ask that, Molly, you probably are.”

Molly wrapped his arms around his thighs and tucked his chin onto his knees.

“Don’t be mean,” he said. “Yasha, she’s being mean, hit her for me.”

“No,” Yasha said.

Jester, with obvious effort, stopped laughing. The laughter was still in every line of her round face, her black eyes sparkling. If she’d had a tail, it would have been swishing.

“Molly,” she said, “Do you think you’re in love with Cay-leb?”

“Yes,” Molly said. “No. Yes, definitely yes. Fuck, I don’t know. How am I supposed to know?”

“It’s different for everyone, every time,” Yasha said. 

“I don’t really do it myself,” Jester said. “I just like reading about it.”

“How is any of this supposed to help me?”

“If my reading is any guide,” Jester said, with enthusiasm dripping off her words, “it feels like fire in the chest and like you are dying and like you can’t live without them and like they are the only person who will ever matter again.”

“I don’t feel any of that,” Molly said. “A lot of people still matter to me. I just - I want to be around him a lot -”

“We noticed,” Yasha said.

“And I want to be a better person when I’m with him, and every time I’m with him the world just seems. A little better and brighter and sweeter. And like. I just want - I want -” Molly said. “I want him to be safe, and happy, and content. Even if that’s not with me. Though it’ll really hurt if it’s not, because I am that, with him.”

Molly closed his eyes. 

“When he smiles,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve seen anything more beautiful or perfect in my life.”

“Oh, Molly,” Jester said.

“It - it - like, I love you and Yasha, and a whole lot of other people. I know that, I know -” He bit his lip. “I don’t have the words for it, but I know it, yeah? It’s - duty, but there’s joy in the duty, and there’s happiness in giving you what I can. And I like to be with you, because I love you. But this - I don’t want to call it _more_ , it’s not. It’s just -”

Yasha put her big, comforting hand on his shoulder. “It’s the same creature,” she said, “Just in a different shape.”

Molly looked at her with hopeful eyes. She struggled, lips forming unspoken words, maybe even words that didn’t exist.

“It’s a gut-deep thing. You know it, even if you can’t speak it out. It’s not obligation, or guilt, and it doesn’t demand. It just is, and it accepts, and you take them as what they are and say ‘yes’, and you wake up in the morning and you say ‘still?’ and you say ‘yes, still’, and you know that if they hurt you they won’t mean it, and you can be - you can be safe to say ‘hey, don’t do that’, and they won’t. Or at least, it is for me.”

“Holy shit,” Molly said. “You’re in love with Beau.”

Yasha shrugged. “Yeah,” she said, like it was a universal truth, like it was solid and certain and unbreakable. 

“Personally,” Jester said, “It sounds like a pain.”

“I’m in love with Caleb,” Molly said aloud, and it sat in his heart and his stomach and his bone and his blood, it live in every single solitary speck that made up Mollymauk Tealeaf. “I’m in love with Caleb. Shit. I don’t - I -”

“You should confess,” Jester said.

“No,” Molly said. “No, no no. That is the last thing he needs. God, he’s - I’m amazed he wants to be my boyfriend. If you were a horribly traumatised man in recovery would you want your amnesiac, three-years-of-experience, emotionally unstable wreck of a boy-toy telling you he loved you? No.”

Jester inhaled, sharp. “Molly,” she said.

“No,” he said. “He forgave me, he forgave me after one of my - you know, my episodes. When I showed him how awful I could be he forgave me. He deserves so much better than - than to be held fucking hostage by these feelings. He’ll feel like he has to respond, and I won’t - I won’t do that to him. No.”

Jester wrapped a small brown hand around his calf.

“Molly,” she said, carefully, “You deserve to be loved. You are loved. And I think - “

“I see how he looks at you, Molly, I don’t think - It wouldn’t be unwelcome news, I don’t think.” Yasha said.

Molly shook his head. “It’s my choice. Mine. I’m not saying anything. Not now. Maybe not ever. It’s fine. I’ve got almost everything I want. Who cares if I never tell him?”

“It’s been working for me,” Yasha said, with a small, sad smile. Molly looked at her, thought about the soft, quiet and certain way she loved Beau, who was loud and brash and kind of a shit sometimes. 

“She hurts you, I’ll - do nothing, because Beau could kill me in twenty seconds,” Molly said.

“She’d turn you into paste,” Yasha said, in solemn agreement.

“But I’d be on your side.”

Yasha put an arm around his neck and Jester snuggled into his side.

“You’re great, Molly,” Jester said.”You are amazing and he had better be treating you that way, but also he is great and you should treat him that way.”

“Such loyalty from one of my oldest friends-”

“You want me to lie? Me? A doctor? Mollymauk Tealeaf -”

“He is pretty great, isn’t he?”

“You wouldn’t love anyone who wasn’t,” Yasha said.

“Huh,” Molly said. “You only said that to compliment yourself.”

“Would I ever.”

Molly leaned his head against Yasha’s broad shoulder, and let the knowledge settle down deep. He was in love. It was just a feeling. He didn’t have to do anything about it if he didn’t want. It was his, he could decide what to do.

And what he decided to do was nothing. It fit with the rest of his life right now, drifting aimlessly around New Refuge, losing strength in his legs and lungs with every wasted day. It’d be autumn soon enough, and then winter, and he had enough enforced rest when snow and frost came, thank you.

He wasn’t moping about it, no way, but he was thinking about it very hard and not very happily, leaning against a wall and watching the farmers toil away on what might be the last good harvest of the summer. The peas were in their last stages, and the ones picked now would be pickled and kept for winter. 

There was someone watching him. The - the woman, from the burned village. She’d not really spoken to her, or her him since that. He’d had other things on his mind. She was watching him, and when she caught his eye, she smiled and lifted a hand in greeting.

Cree, that was her name. She was pretty enough, in a pointy, feline kind of way, even with the scars on her face. Before Caleb, he might have enjoyed taking her to bed.

She headed over to him, still smiling. There was something off about the smile that he couldn’t place. But she was there, and she was here and new and something terrible had happened to her and Molly wasn’t going to be awful to her.

“Molly, isn’t it?” she said.

“Yes, the one, the only,” he said, falling back into flirting, feeling unstable, offset.

She looked up at him through her lashes and he distantly realised she was interested in him.

“I’ve been seeing you around,” she said. “You seem interesting. Almost - hmm. I’m Cree.”

“I know,” he said. “Yasha told me.”

“Oh, you were asking about me, were you?” 

One of Cree’s long, pale fingers darted up to his deep v neck, hovered above the scars on his chest for a heartbeat.

“Ah,” Molly said.

“Would you - would you like to go somewhere with me some time? _Molly_?”

“I’m sorry, darling,” he said. “Very flattered of course -” he wasn’t, he was uncomfortable and unhappy - “but I’m seeing someone.”

“Oh,” she said, mouth downturned, eyes huge and kicked-puppy pleading. “Does that matter?”

What the fuck? “Yes.”

She looked at him, very strangely for a moment. Then, in a sudden heartbeat, her face was the very picture of shame and guilt.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “It’s just - you remind me so much of someone else. Someone who -someone who died. You look so like him. I suppose it made me a little - I didn’t mean to be so awful.”

She started to cry.

“Hey,” Molly said. “Hey, no, don’t - “

“You never met him, did you?” she said, through tears. “His name was Lucien, you look so alike, I wondered maybe -”

“I’ve never once known a Lucien,” he said.

She nodded, streaming tears, and left without a word. Well, then, maybe that was the strangeness in her. Grief could warp people, leave them odd and misplaced. Maybe she was just a little odd and Molly, very odd himself, was being a shit over something she couldn’t help.

Never mind it. He knew just what would take his mind off it. Caleb.

Caleb was talking to Maz, and writing down what they had to say. Maz was a very dark-skinned person who had been telling stories and poems at evening gatherings for at least a year now. It would be good that what they had to say was remembered.

Maz spotted him and offered him a radiant smile, before gently drawing Caleb’s attention his way.

If Maz’s smile had been radiant, Caleb’s was like staring into the heart of the sun. Molly felt the stupid, fond, besotted smile on his own face and could do nothing to stop it.

He heard Maz say ‘awww’ from somewhere to his left.

“Molly,” they said. “I’m off to find my beloved. Do you want a hug?”

Molly consented and was enveloped in Maz’s warm, soft embrace. He looked over their shoulder to Caleb, smiling the whole time. Then Maz was gone, waving at him as they left and Caleb was stacking the writing he’d been doing.

Molly leaned over, and smiled into Caleb’s face.

“Working day is nearly done, my darling,” he said.

“Hmmm, and I suppose you want some attention.”

“You know I’ll die without it.”

Caleb’s mouth twitched. “We can’t have that,” he said. He reached out for Molly’s hand and tangled their fingers.

Ridiculous, how Molly’s heart beat fast at that. He’d had this man’s cock in his mouth, for fucks sake.

“Hey,” Caleb said.

“Hey,” Molly said back. “You ready to go?”

“Ja. What are our plans for tonight?”

“Thought we could go back to yours or mine, spend some time together, maybe-” Molly leaned over so Caleb could see down his v-neck and feel Molly’s breath on his neck - “maybe we could do some of that working up we were talking about.”

“Hmm. Maybe we could. Mine, I think. Nott is spending the night with her friends again.”

Caleb traced a finger up Molly’s arm and it made him shudder.

“Just let me lock up, Mollymauk.”

It didn’t take long, or it took forever. Time always had its own meaning with Caleb. Never enough of it, going too fast, but every second a wonderful eternity full of meaning. Molly liked to look at him when Caleb was doing other things, see his face in thought, or focussed on things beyond, liked the way his gingerish eyelashes caught the light in copper sparks and all the lines of his face and body.

But they were at Caleb’s, and Nott wasn’t there - it had the thick silence of absence. Caleb took Molly’s face in his hands and kissed him and Molly responded, all enthusiasm. They were together, they were boyfriends, and that made this - different. It wasn’t a one night stand, or sex friends, or whatever. This was part of a relationship. It made it feel strange and new and fizzy, made him oddly nervous.

But kissing Caleb was always good. And his nerves dissolved as Caleb moved his hands under Molly’s top, to run up his back. Caleb’s hands on his skin, leaving sparks of want behind them, like magic.

“Caleb,” Molly said against his mouth. “Caleb, my darling - I really want to get to your bed and see what you have to show me.”

Caleb laughed, dark and hungry and wild. He grabbed Molly’s hand and led him to the bedroom. Small and quiet and full of books and Molly would erase the memory of Caleb bleeding and hurting here with this, with kisses and fucking and wanting and softness and love, yes, love, Molly may never say it aloud but that wouldn’t stop him from feeling it and acting from it.

Caleb pushed him, gently, down on the bed. Molly could stand more roughness but thought he had probably scared Caleb from roughness entirely. Unless - not tonight, but they could discuss it, talk about what they wanted and how. That was a thing they could do, and it made Molly soar.

“I was thinking,” Caleb said, in the strangely formal and clinical way he sometimes had, “That I could suck you while I fingered you, so you can see it can be good. And then, maybe, if you had a second go in you I could get you to fuck me.”

Molly’s brain shorted out, stuck between two choices of what in particular sounded best to him. He couldn’t.

“Yeah, definitely,” he said. “Those - both those sound great. Please.”

Caleb was going to let Molly fuck him. Fuck, Molly wanted everything, all at once.

Caleb tilted Molly’s face up with a finger under his chin.

“There is no room for - for untruths in this bed. If you don’t want something, you will tell me. If you don’t like it, or you want me to change what I am doing, you will tell me.”

There was something about Caleb telling him it would be that way that made him relax, made him tingle, made him trust. Caleb wouldn’t let Molly’s worst self ruin things. Caleb wouldn’t let Molly hurt himself with something that was supposed to bring them both joy and pleasure.

Molly, it seemed, quite liked being told what to do - as long as it was Caleb doing the telling. He wasn’t completely ignorant. He knew what this was - he’d played games of dominance and submission before, but they had always been play. Enjoyable play, but he’d been adopting roles to please others.

Now, there were no roles. He just liked this, right now, and the time for thinking about it was over.

“Should I call you sir, too?” he asked, because no matter if this was genuine, so was Molly’s instinctive drive to be a bratty little shit.

Caleb smiled at him. “If you want. Do you want to?”

“Maybe? I don’t know. I do know the other rules, though, from before.” Caleb telling him to hold still and not move while Caleb sucked his life out through his dick. It had gone into the memory bank as a favourite sexual experience. “Red for stop, Orange for slow down, Green for keep going.”

“Good boy,” Caleb said, approval thick in his voice and Molly’s cock, the traitor, twitched.

Caleb sat beside him on the bed and rummaged through a drawer for the same lube he’d used before. Molly looked at it and licked his lips, his cock half hard, fat and interested behind his fly.

“Now,” Caleb said, voice smooth and cool and practiced. “I know you are nervous and not used to this. I will use one finger, and later two, if you ask me to. I will make it good, and I will not hurt you, but you must do as I say.”

“Yes,” Molly said.

“Is there anything you want? That will help you relax?”

“Well,” Molly said, and bit his lip. Caleb put a gentle hand on his thigh. Molly took a deep breath. “I know you prefer to keep your shirt on, but - when I’m all the way naked and you’re not, it makes me feel a bit -” he waved his hand in the air, uncertain. “It’s not a hard line thing, it’s good if you can’t take your shirt off, but I’d feel… closer to you, if you did.”

Caleb was quiet for a while, his hand still on Molly’s thigh.

“I am - not ready for that,” he said. “But a compromise is possible. If I unbutton my shirt to the waist and roll up the sleeves, and let you touch underneath it, will that be alright?”

Molly thought, and smiled. That was so huge, such a display of trust and care. 

“Yeah, that’s good.”

In response Caleb kissed him on the cheek, sweet, then filthy on the lips, lots of tongue and teeth, enough to get Molly’s cock interested in proceedings again. Between them both they got Molly undressed with impressive speed, until he was propped up on his elbow, hard cock twitching against his hip, watching Caleb with an encouraging smile. Caleb, who had his hands on the cuffs of his shirt.

“What if -” Caleb said.

“I already saw a lot of it, Caleb, and I’m still here,” Molly said.

Caleb nodded, and rolled his sleeves up to the elbow, revealing light skin marred by burn scars. With a long outbreath through his nose, he unbuttoned his shirt. Not all the way, but enough for Molly to see.

It was a mess. It couldn’t be called anything else. In places the burns had warped and melted flesh. There were a lot of them. And among them all, angry and awful, were the vivid marks of Caleb’s self-hate.

It was awful and terrible, and it was Caleb, so it was beautiful too. Because Molly loved Caleb, and Caleb would always be the most beautiful man alive to him.

Molly moved to his knees and crawled to where Caleb sat, and pressed open mouthed kisses to Caleb’s scars, first on his arms, then his chest. Above him Caleb sucked in a breath and when Molly looked up his eyes were wet.

“Caleb,” Molly said, alarmed. 

“What did I do to deserve you in my bed?” Caleb asked.

Molly shrugged. “Kept being nice to me? I’m pretty easy. Speaking of -” He waggled his eyebrows and stroked his erection, slow. “I could do with a hand. Get it, a hand -”

Caleb pushed Molly back again, cutting off his squawk with a hard, almost brutal kiss. He replaced Molly’s hand with his own and stroked roughly, making Molly moan into his mouth.

“That what you wanted?”

“Yes,” Molly said, feeling dizzy and starry with it. “Oh, Caleb, more.”

Caleb kept one hand on Molly’s dick and moved the other to the fly of his own trousers. Clumsy, he unbuttoned and unzipped them before wriggling out of them and kicking them to the floor. He wasn’t wearing boxers; his erection twitched between his thighs.

Molly wanted to touch, and he was allowed. That was the most wonderful thing, that he was allowed.

“Kiss me,” he said to Caleb. “Oh, kiss me -” He ran one exploring hand under Caleb’s shirt. It was okay, Caleb had said he could. Under his sensitive fingertips the texture of more scars, of the awful life Caleb had survived, and fuck, he liked it, he liked Caleb’s skin against his own no matter how flawed or hurt. It felt right, perfect.

Caleb kissed him again, sloppy, hungry, teeth and tongue and his hand kept working Molly’s cock. His other hand cradled Molly’s face with heartaching tenderness. Caleb’s hard dick pressed into Molly’s hips and he was over Molly, on Molly, his weight comforting and safe and arousing, not frightening or caging him.

Caleb turned the kiss into soft, brief kisses,then rested his forehead on Molly’s own.

“Every time,” he said. “Every time with you is the best time.” After this astonishing, wonderful thing to say, he nipped at Molly’s jaw, his neck, moved down Molly’s body to tease at his nipples. Oh, Molly always liked that and he bucked and whined at the wet heat and sharp teeth on this sensitive part of him, the little catch of pain in the pleasure.

And then Caleb was moving on again, and his saliva chilled and dried on Molly’s nipples, leaving them stiff and hard in the air, and Caleb sucked a mark above Molly’s hipbone and another on Molly’s inner thigh and fuck, fuck, how was Caleb this good how did he- how did he know exactly what to do to make Molly an incoherent mess?

“Caleb, please,” is all Molly could say.

“Please? Please what?” Caleb said with his head resting on Molly’s thigh.

“Fuck, Caleb. Just - please, alright? I want you. I want you so much.”

“Oh, Molly.” Caleb’s head lifted, his hand moved, and there was the click of a bottle cap opening. Not loud, but very big. The lube. Molly swallowed, a flutter of nerves in his chest and heart.

“It will be alright,” Caleb said. “I will not hurt you.”

“I know,” Molly said. “I trust you.” 

Caleb stopped for a instant, then smiled at Molly sudden, genuine, startled.

“One finger, Mollymauk, one finger. Tilt your hips up for me.”

Molly did, breath caught in his chest, all anticipation and nerves. Caleb’s finger was cool and slippery, massaging his rim. Just when Molly was going to tense instinctively, Caleb swallowed his cock.

Molly shouted, stuffed his fist into his mouth and bit down on it. Fuck, this was good. Caleb was so obviously being careful, thrusting his finger in tiny gentle increments. It felt weird. Not bad, just strange and unfamiliar. His body wanted to bear down and push the intrusion out of him but Caleb’s mouth on his dick relaxed and turned him on enough to let it happen, to wait - and then Caleb was doing something and it went from strange and not bad to actually good.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh, I didn’t know -”

Caleb stopped sucking on him for a little. “One more,” he said, voice rough and ragged and that was Molly, Molly’s cock had done that to him.

“Ok. Does it - I like it, but does it -”

“It gets better. More intense,” Caleb told him and Molly shuddered.

“More,” Molly said, “Then give me more.”

Caleb pulled his finger almost all the way out of Molly’s arse, there was the squelching obscene noise of more lube applied to fingers and then -

He was slow again, yeah, but two was better, so much better, he was, he was - stretched and full and there was a pressure in him, and this was just Caleb’s fingers. He imagined Caleb’s cock inside him and for the first time he wasn’t scared of fucking up, disappointing Caleb. He - he liked the idea, imagined only the pleasure of the hot, hard weight of Caleb’s dick inside him.

Caleb was sucking him still, and that was - the two differences, one hot and wet and soft, the other firm and certain, it was - his mind, that was the thing. Flying in two different directions.

He was close, pleasure and want and joy sparking up and down him with dizzying sparking strength. He was close. He was going to come from this, come with Caleb’s fingers in his arse. He was distantly aware he was making unattractive desperate noises, too far gone to care about putting on a show.

Then Caleb did something - angled his fingers somehow and it was like being hit by lightning. Molly bit hard into his own arm for something to do with his body, he was on fucking fire, he was - and Caleb did it again and Molly had a brief second of coherent rationality in which he thought ‘I bet he’s feeling so smug right now’ before his body bowed and he screamed and his toes curled and he came so hard it hurt, came so hard he went deaf and blind and nothing fucking mattered any more.

He came to panting, drooling a little, arse empty and regretfully so and Caleb was kneeling astride him, jerking himself off with an expression of wonder and lust intertwined.

“Fuck, yeah,” Molly said. “Come on me.”

Caleb did, with a strangled grunt, striping Molly with hot semen over his belly and chest.

Molly laughed, shaky, delighted, feeling unreal. 

“Guess I won’t be fucking you tonight,” he said. “You’ve killed me. This is how I die.”

“Another time. We have time,” Caleb said, his own breath laboured. “Oh, Molly.”

Molly brought his hand up behind Caleb’s head, brought it down to his shoulder. Caleb went willingly, breathing into the skin. Out, in. Out, in. Molly’s heart rate was slowing, coming down to normal. It was strange, he thought, how much of his feelings seemed to live there when he knew - when Jester had said - they were all brewed up in his brain.

He stroked Calebs hair, ran his fingers through fine strands. Caleb’s hair waved where his own curled, and wasn’t quite as soft as his own. It was these things, the differences, that made the ache in him sweet and pleading. Caleb’s light skin, his freckles, brownish-gingerish hair, his good big strong nose, the blue eyes, the lean long sweep of his thighs and the growing softness at his belly, narrow shoulders. Caleb stooped, habitually. These fragile spaces were where the love lived, these marks of humanity and unique imperfect perfection. 

Molly would love him as long as he was able. He’d never loved like this before, and it was terrifying. He wanted to cradle it safe and close to him, protect it, aware instinctively that it was fragile and as easily hurt as nurtured.

“I should clean you up,” Caleb said. “You’ll get sticky.”

“Oh, I’m a lost cause, darling,” Molly said, desperately trying to sound normal - well, normal for him. 

“Let me take care of you, Mollymauk.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Caleb left the bed. Molly barely had time to miss his closeness (ridiculous, to miss someone in the same room as him -) before he was back with a rag he dampened from a canteen of water. He cleaned Molly gently, with care.. The water was cold and made Molly shiver and complain.

“Back to bed,” he said. “I want cuddles.”

“I can manage that,” Caleb said. There was a strange caution in him, like Molly was precious and breakable. Well, of course, the last time they’d tried something like this-

“That was - I really liked that, Caleb. I want to do that again.”

“Good,” Caleb said. He lay down on his side, facing Molly. He wrapped an arm around Molly and fuck. Fuck. It felt like the only place Molly wanted to be, ever again. 

Molly had never really had a home. He’d been good for a long time, all his life, here at New Refuge, but there’d always been a yearning place in him, something lonely and wanting. Now, with Caleb’s arm over him and his warm body pressed to Molly’s own - now he knew what home was.

He’d always be a wanderer by nature. But now he’d always have something to come back for.

The next day, after waking beside Caleb to soft kisses and affection that he would never, ever learn to take for granted, he was facing another day of doing nothing and being angry and upset about it, but Orna came to find him in the common room.

“I -” she said, and swallowed. “I wasn’t wrong.”

“Great start.”

“I wasn’t - I’m trying, Molly. Give me - give me a moment.”

Molly have her one. He was mostly not angry with her, specifically, any more. He didn’t tend to hold grudges for long. But that didn’t mean he was going to make it easy for her. He waited, and said nothing to help her along.

“I wasn’t wrong that you fucked up,” Orna said at last. “But I was wrong in keeping you here as a punishment, and I was wrong about a lot of my reasons for locking Norwich down.”

“Ok,” Molly said. 

“Someone was always gonna head in,” Orna said. She sounded sad. She rubbed at her knuckles with a thumb. “Forbid something, and it just makes it sweeter to a certain type of person.” She gave him a wry look.

Fair enough.

“It really wasn’t any worse than some places I’ve already been,” Molly said. “The leg? It could have happened anywhere. It’s my job.”

“It wasn’t - Molly,” she said. “This is - I lost - I can’t - I was scared, Molly. I didn’t want to lose you. And it made me act badly. I’m so sorry.”

“I’m not a child,” he said. “I know I’ve not got much experience, but I’m not a child.”

“I know,” Orna said, looking down at her hands. “Which is - you can head out again. Gate guards have been told. You’re as free as you ever were. I don’t want to keep you as some kind of prisoner, Molly, and I was, and that’s not what I want to do here even if - especially if I’m doing it for what I think are the right reasons. Because I’m just a person, and I can be wrong.”

Molly sighed with relief.

“Just, do me a favour? Next time you head out, this first time - could you not go alone? I won’t force you. But I’d be less scared if you went with Yasha, or Fjord, or -”

“Or Caleb?” Molly said.

“Or Caleb,” Orna said, smiling. “If he wants to go.”

“No harm in asking.” Molly kept his tone light, easy. But he suddenly had an idea. A memory of a place he’d seen once, on a longish trip. Somewhere Caleb would love.

“I was thinking,” he said slow, “down to Thetford. It’s been a while and there’s still good stuff to find up there. Plus, you send me out with some things we don’t need, I can swap them out in Elveden, they get a lot of venison.”

“Sounds good.” Orna’s smile was a little shaky, a bit watery, but she was trying. It was enough.

And he had a plan now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I'll level with you. Since The Incident I've not been writing as much on this. It's about... 4 or 5 chapters away from being done and it WILL be done but not on the previous schedule. K? K.

**Author's Note:**

> Meet me on tumblr - Bisexualpiratequeen. Or on Pillowfort, same name!
> 
> Widomauk discord - you're so supportive. This is your fault.


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